Zong Kui Sun, Xiao Li Yang

• Time delays are ubiquitous in real world and are often sources of complex behaviors of dynamical systems. This paper addresses the problem of parameters identification and synchronization of uncertain chaotic delayed systems subject to time-varying delay. Firstly, a novel and systematic adaptive scheme of synchronization is proposed for delayed dynamical systems containing uncertainties based on Razumikhin condition and extended invariance principle for functional differential equations. Then, the proposed adaptive scheme is used to estimate the unknown parameters of nonlinear delayed systems from time series, and a sufficient condition is given by virtue of this scheme. The delayed system under consideration is a very generic one that includes almost all well-known delayed systems (neural network, complex networks, etc.). Two classical examples are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive scheme.