Finite-Time Topology Identification of Delayed Complex Dynamical Networks and Its Application

To understand the functional behaviors of systems built on networks, it is essential to determine the uncertain topology of these networks. Traditional synchronization-based topology identification methods generally converge asymptotically or exponentially, resulting in their inability to give timely identification results. The finite-time stability theory is adopted in this paper with the aim of addressing the problem of fast identification of uncertain topology in networks. A novel finite-time topology observer is proposed to achieve finite-time topology identification and synchronization of general complex dynamical networks with time delay and second-order dynamical networks with time delay and nonlinear coupling. In addition, the proposed finite-time identification method is applied to power grids to address the problem of fast detection of line outages. Finally, 2 numerical experiments are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness and rapidity of the proposed finite-time identification method.