Using Chaos to Direct Trajectories to Targets

A method is developed which uses the exponential sensitivity of a chaotic system to tiny perturbations to direct the system to a desired accessible state in a short time. This is done by applying a small, judiciously chosen, perturbation to an available system parameter. An expression for the time required to reach an accessible state by applying such a perturbation is derived and confirmed by numerical experiment. The method introduced is shown to be effective even in the presence of small-amplitude noise or small modeling errors.