Master–Slave Synchronization of Neural Networks With Unbounded Delays via Adaptive Method

Master–slave synchronization of two delayed neural networks with adaptive controller has been studied in recent years; however, the existing delays in network models are bounded or unbounded with some derivative constraints. For more general delay without these restrictions, how to design proper adaptive controller and prove rigorously the convergence of error system is still a challenging problem. This article gives a positive answer for this problem. By means of the stability result of unbounded delayed system and some analytical techniques, we prove that the traditional centralized adaptive algorithms can achieve global asymptotical synchronization even if the network delays are unbounded without any derivative constraints. To describe the convergence speed of the synchronization error, adaptive designs depending on a flexible
$\omega $
-type function are also provided to control the synchronization error, which can lead exponential synchronization, polynomial synchronization, and logarithmically synchronization. Numerical examples on delayed neural networks and chaotic Ikeda-like oscillator are presented to verify the adaptive designs, and we find that in the case of unbounded delay, the intervention of
$\omega $
-type function can promote the realization of synchronization but may destroy the convergence of control gain, and this however will not happen in the case of bounded delay.