Event-based fixed-time synchronization of neural networks under DoS attack and its applications

Abstract

In this paper, the fixed-time synchronization control for neural networks with discontinuous data communication is investigated. Due to the transmission blocking caused by DoS attack, it is intractable to establish a monotonically decreasing Lyapunov function like the conventional analysis of fixed-time stability. Therefore, by virtue of recursive and reduction to absurdity approaches, novel fixed-time stability criteria where the estimated upper bound of settling-time is inherently different from existing results are presented. Then, based on the developed conditions, an event-triggered control scheme that can avoid Zeno behavior is designed to achieve synchronization of master–slave neural networks under DoS attack within a prescribed time. For comparison, the established control scheme is further discussed under the case without DoS attack, and the circumstance that there is no attack or event-triggered mechanism, respectively. Simulation results are finally provided to illustrate the significant and validity of our theoretical research. Especially, in terms of encryption and decryption keys generated from the synchronization behavior of chaotic networks, we specifically discuss the application of the proposed fixed-time synchronization scheme to image and audio encryption.