Abstract

In this paper, we find that, by computing the difference between two consecutive state vectors of second-order double-loop sigma-delta modulators (SDMs) and plotting one component of the subtracted vectors against the other component, irregular chaotic patterns will become two vertical lines. By multiplying a matrix on the subtracted vectors, it can be further transformed to two fixed points. However, second-order interpolative bandpass SDMs still exhibit chaotic behaviors after applying the same transformations. Moreover, it is found that the Lyapunov exponent of state vectors of second-order double-loop SDMs is higher than that of second-order interpolative bandpass SDMs, whereas the Lyapunov exponent of transformed vectors becomes negative infinity for second-order double-loop SDMs and increases for second-order interpolative bandpass SDMs. Hence, by examining the occurrence of chaotic behaviors of the transformed vectors of these two SDMs, these two SDMs can be distinguished from their state vectors and their transformed vectors without solving the state equations and knowing the information of input signals.