a b s t r a c t In this paper, a hybrid method using active control and a High Order Differentiator (HOD) methodology is proposed to synchronize chaotic systems. Compared to some traditional active control methods, this new method can synchronize chaotic systems where only output states of the master system are available, i.e. the system is considered a black box. The HOD is used to estimate the derivative information of the master system followed by an active control methodology relying on HOD information. The Qi hyperchaotic system is used to verify the performance of this hybrid method. The proposed method is also compared to some traditional methods. Experimental results show that the proposed method has high synchronization precision and speed and is robust against uncertainties in the master system. The circus implements of the proposed synchronizing scheme are included in this paper. The simulation results show the feasibility of the proposed scheme.