Perturbation-Based Pinning Control Strategy for Enhanced Synchronization in Complex Networks

Abstract

Synchronization is essential for the stability and coordinated operation of complex networked systems. Pinning control, which selectively controls a subset of nodes, provides a scalable solution to enhance network synchronizability. However, existing strategies face key limitations: heuristic centrality-based methods lack a direct connection to synchronization dynamics, while spectral approaches, though effective, are computationally intensive. To address these challenges, we propose a perturbation-based optimized strategy (PBO) that dynamically evaluates each node's spectral impact on the Laplacian matrix, achieving improved synchronizability with significantly reduced computational costs (with complexity O(kM)). Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms traditional strategies in synchronizability, convergence rate, and pinning robustness to node failures. Notably, in all the empirical networks tested and some generated networks, PBO significantly outperforms the brute-force greedy strategy, demonstrating its ability to avoid local optima and adapt to complex connectivity patterns. Our study establishes the theoretical relationship between network synchronizability and convergence rate, offering new insights into efficient synchronization strategies for large-scale complex networks.