Fractal dimension of the strange attractor of the bouncing ball circuit

We address the problem of distinguishing regular, chaotic, and random behavior using an electronic circuit modeling of a ball bouncing on an oscillating table. We calculate the correlation dimension of the system from time series data taken from the circuit, and show that this system seems amenable to correlation dimension analysis. In particular we find dimensions of 1.07 for regular data and 1.7 for chaotic data, while random data give no finite dimension. We conclude that the system apparently has a chaotic attractor of low dimension. The experiment and data analysis make a useful module to introduce advanced undergraduate students to nonlinear systems.