Optical Chaotic Communication Using Generalized and Complete Synchronization

We propose a secure optical communication system based on the principles of generalized and complete chaotic synchronization. A transmitter and a receiver both composed by two chaotic external-cavity semiconductor lasers are coupled in a master-slave configuration to provide generalized synchronization, while the master lasers in the transmitter and in the receiver are completely synchronized through the synchronization channel via an optical fiber. A message is added to the transmitter slave laser and sent to the receiver through the information channel to be compared with the output of the receiver slave laser. The system is robust to a small mismatch of the laser parameters or of the coupling between the master and slave lasers, unavoidable in a real system, and can even enable a good communication up to a 5 Gb/s transmission rate using the chaos masking encryption method, when the master laseres are coupled bidirectionally.