MIF-based event-triggered schemes for synchronization control of coupling complex dynamic networks

• A monotonically increasing function (MIF)-based ETS mechanism is introduced for synchronization control of nonlinear coupled CDNs, enriching the class of adaptive sampling strategies available for networked synchronization problems. Moreover, Zeno behavior is excluded by deriving an explicit lower bound on interevent intervals. • A sampled-data controller with both time-varying and state-dependent structure is designed to enhance synchronization performance under reduced communication load. • A looped-functional-based stability analysis is developed to establish asymptotic synchronization conditions in LMI form, enabling simultaneous design of both controller gains and triggering parameters. • Numerical simulations demonstrate that the proposed scheme achieves superior synchronization accuracy with significantly fewer triggering events compared with existing event-triggered methods. Synchronization of complex dynamical networks (CDNs) is one of fundamental objectives in control and network science. This paper introduces an event-triggered sampling scheme defined by a monotonically increasing function (MIF), which starts from an initially negative value and triggers a sampling event once it reaches zero. Compared with some existing event-triggered strategies, the MIF-based mechanism is more natural and flexible, as it yields an explicit expression for the estimation on the inter-event times. This event-triggered scheme is then applied to synchronization control of coupled complex dynamical networks via a time-varying state-feedback controller. By employing the looped-functional method, several algorithms are developed to jointly design appropriate control gains and event-triggering parameters. Finally, a numerical example based on an unforced isolate node is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.