On the synchronization of neural networks containing time-varying delays and sector nonlinearity

We present a systematic design procedure for synchronization of neural networks subject to time-varying delays and sector nonlinearity in the control input. Based on the drive-response concept and the Lyapunov stability theorem, a memoryless decentralized control law is proposed which guarantees exponential synchronization even when input nonlinearity is present. The supplementary requirement that the time-derivative of time-varying delays must be smaller than one is released for the proposed control scheme. A four-dimensional Hopfield neural network with time-varying delays is presented as the illustrative example to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed synchronization scheme.