Topology Identification of Multilink Complex Dynamical Networks via Adaptive Observers Incorporating Chaotic Exosignals

Topology identification of complex networks is an important and meaningful research direction. In recent years, the topology identification method based on adaptive synchronization has been developed rapidly. However, a critical shortcoming of this method is that inner synchronization of a network breaks the precondition of linear independence and leads to the failure of topology identification. Hence, how to identify the network topology when possible inner synchronization occurs within the network has been a challenging research issue. To solve this problem, this article proposes improved topology identification methods by regulating the original network to synchronize with an auxiliary network composed of isolated chaotic exosystems. The proposed methods do not require the sophisticated assumption of linear independence. The topology identification observers incorporating a series of isolated chaotic exosignals can accurately identify the network structure. Finally, numerical simulations show that the proposed methods are effective to identify the structure of a network even with large weights of edges and abundant connections between nodes.