Switching cluster synchronization control of networked harmonic oscillators subject to denial-of-service attacks

This paper is concerned with the average cluster synchronization control problem of networked harmonic oscillators under denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. Different from some existing DoS attack models that often necessitate specific statistical characteristics, only the worse-case duration bound of the DoS attacks is required during the control design procedure, which represents the least a priori knowledge of realistic DoS attacks. Then, a novel switching cluster synchronization control scheme, which leverages a position-based feedback control protocol under a non-small delay and a position velocity-based feedback control protocol with a small delay, is developed such that the above two control protocols are selected based on the occurrence of the DoS attacks. Via formulating the resultant synchronization system as a switched time-delay system, a complete-type Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional (LKF) method is further proposed to establish sufficient controller design criteria associated with the duration and frequency of attacks for both synchronous and asynchronous DoS attacks among clusters. Furthermore, an iterative algorithm is designed to calculate the control gain matrices by solving a set of nonlinear matrix inequalities (NLMIs). Finally, a multi-vehicle cooperative control system is presented to demonstrate the validity of the proposed control scheme.