Synchronisation of time--delay systems

Abstract

We present the linear-stability analysis of synchronised states in coupled time-delay systems. There exists a synchronisation threshold, for which we derive upper bounds, which does not depend on the delay time. We prove that at least for scalar time-delay systems synchronisation is achieved by transmitting a single scalar signal, even if the synchronised solution is given by a high-dimensional chaotic state with a large number of positive Lyapunov-exponents. The analytical results are compared with numerical simulations of two coupled Mackey-Glass equations.