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.