Pinning exponential synchronization of complex networks via event-triggered communication with combinational measurements

• Two novel event-triggered control strategies are proposed for pinning synchronization of complex networks.
• The convergence rates for complex networks under such two event-triggered control strategies are estimated.
• The proposed event-triggered control strategies are proved to be Zeno-free.

In this paper, we consider the pinning exponential synchronization of complex networks via event-triggered communication. By using the combinational measurements, two classes of event triggers are designed, one depends on continuous communications between the agents, the other avoids the continuous communications. The controller updates when triggering function reaches certain threshold. For such classes of two event triggers, the exponential synchronization as well as the convergence rate of the controlled complex networks are studied, respectively, by employing the M-matrix theory, algebraic graph theory and the Lyapunov method. Two simulation examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed two classes of event triggering strategies. It is noteworthy that the event trigger with combinational measurements avoids decoupling the actual state of the nodes, which is more effective than the error-based event trigger.