Adaptive Drive-Response Synchronization of Timescale-Type Neural Networks With Unbounded Time-Varying Delays

In recent years, adaptive drive-response synchronization (DRS) of two continuous-time delayed neural networks (NNs) has been investigated extensively. For two timescale-type NNs (TNNs), how to develop adaptive synchronization control schemes and demonstrate rigorously is still an open problem. This article concentrates on adaptive control design for synchronization of TNNs with unbounded time-varying delays. First, timescale-type Barbalat lemma and novel timescale-type inequality techniques are first proposed, which provides us practical methods to investigate timescale-type nonlinear systems. Second, using timescale-type calculus, novel timescale-type inequality, and timescale-type Barbalat lemma, we demonstrate that global asymptotic synchronization can be achieved via adaptive control under algebraic and matrix inequality criteria even if the time-varying delays are unbounded and nondifferentiable. Adaptive DRS is discussed for TNNs, which implies our control schemes are suitable for continuous-time NNs, their discrete-time counterparts, and any combination of them. Finally, numerical examples on TNNs and timescale-type chaotic Ikeda-like oscillator with unbounded time-varying delays are carried out to verify the adaptive control schemes.