The switching fractional order chaotic system and its application to image encryption

Many studies on fractional order chaotic systems and secure communications have been carried out, however, switching fractional order chaotic system and its application to image encryption have not been explored yet. In this paper, a new switching fractional order chaotic system is proposed, containing fractional order Chen system and the other two fractional order chaotic systems. Chaotic attractors and dynamical analysis including Lyapunov exponent, bifurcation diagram, fractal dimension, dissipation, stability and symmetry are shown firstly. After that, some circuit simulations through Multisim are presented. By controlling switch k U+2082 and k U+2083, switching among the three fractional order chaotic subsystems can be realized. Finally, we apply the switching fractional order chaotic system to image encryption using exclusive or U+0028 XOR U+0029 encryption algorithm. The encryption scheme could increase randomness and improve speed of encryption.