Vibrational resonance and chaos control in the canonical Chua’s circuit with a smooth nonlinear resistor

Vibrational resonance and chaos control in the canonical Chua’s circuit with a smooth cubic nonlinear resistor is investigated by an analog circuit experiment and a dynamical model. By adjusting the amplitude and frequency of the high-frequency signal while keeping other parameters constant, the system exhibits a resonant peak in its response to the weak low-frequency signal. Notably, when the amplitude of the high-frequency signal exceeds the critical threshold, the system undergoes a transition from a single-scroll chaotic attractor to a double-scroll chaotic attractor, marking the emergence of vibrational resonance. In particular, the maximum of the system’s response amplitude is insusceptible when the frequency of the high-frequency signal varies over a broad range, which indicates the strong robustness of the vibrational resonance in the present system. The experimental results are coincident with the numerical simulations. This research has potential applications in chaos control and weak signal detection.