A brief survey of control and synchronization under information constraints (limited information capacity of the coupling channel) is given. Limit possibilities of nonlinear observer-based synchronization systems with first-order coders or full-order coders are considered in more detail. The existing and new theoretical results for multidimensional drive-response Lurie systems (linear part plus nonlinearity depending only on measurable outputs) are presented. It is shown that the upper bound of the limit synchronization error (LSE) is proportional to the upper bound of the transmission error. As a consequence, the upper and lower bounds of LSE are proportional to the maximum coupling signal rate and inversely proportional to the information transmission rate (channel capacity). The analysis is extended to networks having a "chain," "star," or "star-chain" topology. Adaptive chaotic synchronization under information constraints is analyzed. The results are illustrated by example: master-slave synchronization of two chaotic Chua systems coupled via a channel with limited capacity.
(c) 2008 American Institute of Physics.