Complex systems have the property that many competing behaviors are possible, and the system tends to alternate among them. In fact, the ability of a complex system to access many different states, combined with its sensitivity, offers great flexibility in manipulating the system's dynamics to select a desired behavior. By understanding dynamically how some of the complex features arise, we show that it is indeed possible to control a complex system's behavior. This is illustrated by using the noisy double rotor map as a paradigm.

• Received 11 July 1995

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.75.4023