Chaos synchronization in general complex dynamical networks with coupling delays

On the basis of Lyapunov stability theory, chaos synchronization of a general complex dynamical network with coupling delays is investigated. Some delay-independent and delay-dependent criteria for exponential synchronization are derived via adopting the free weighting matrix approach; these are less conservative than those previously reported. As an example, the upper bound of the coupling delay for a Duffing system is obtained, and is larger than those reported previously. Finally, some simulation results obtained with different outer-coupling matrices are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the results that we obtained, and these are compared with existing conclusions to show the advantage of our results. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.