Estimating the ultimate bound and positively invariant set for the Lorenz system and a unified chaotic system

To estimate the ultimate bound and positively invariant set for a dynamic system is an important but quite challenging task in general. In this paper, we attempt to investigate the ultimate bound and positively invariant set for two specific systems, the Lorenz system and a unified chaotic system. We derive an ellipsoidal estimate of the ultimate bound and positively invariant set for the Lorenz system, for all the positive values of its parameters a, b and c, and obtain the minimum value of volume for the ellipsoid. Comparing with the best results in the current literature [D. Li, J. Lu, X. Wu, G. Chen, Estimating the bounds for the Lorenz family of chaotic systems, Chaos Solitons Fractals 23 (2005) 529–534; X. Liao, On the global basin of attraction and positively invariant set for the Lorenz chaotic system and its application in chaos control and synchronization, Sci. China Ser. E 34 (2004) 1404–1419], our new results fill up the gap of the estimate for the cases of 0