Chaos and Laser Communication Modelling

This talk will deal with the communications-engineering research area of chaos-based communications systems - systems in which message bits are carried and spread by discrete-time chaotic waves rather than periodic waves. Such systems have potential for security, capacity and resistance to interference. Development of the area heavily depends on the statistical and dynamical aspects of chaotic processes and their interplay with channel stochastic noise and interference. While the area is a very active one in several groups of international and mathematically educated electronics researchers, it faces some challenges which are most suitably approached with mathematical and statistical expertise. The main theoretical aspects are those of bit estimation and bit error, both highly statistical. Previous engineering approaches ignored some key points and gave unsatisfactory approximations. Work on the chaos-shift keying system by the speaker and collaborators has produced exact results which give considerable insight of engineering value. Latest work involves develeopments to laser-based shift-keying communications systems and the analysis of very long sequences of data collected over very short time periods. Chaos-based communications is one area in nonlinear engineering where statisticians can make a difference.

This topic can be covered at an introductory level for statistical audiences or at a level which assumes knowledge of the area and which goes more into current issues and advances.