Abstract:One of the mainpurposes in the study of complex network topology and modeling isto understand the influence of network structure on its functionand consequently to find out an effective way to improve thenetwork performance. This paper surveys recent advances in thedistributed control approaches for making a dynamical network tobehavior in a desired way. For a large-scale dynamical networkwith fixed and connected topology, great efforts have been focusedon pinning control, i.e. to achieve the goal of control bydirectly adding control input to a fraction of nodes selected fromthe network, the feasibility, stability and strategy of which arereviewed in this paper. On the other hand, for a dynamical networkwith time-varying and possibly disconnected topology, flockingcontrol of mobile multi-agent network systems with limitedcommunication capabilities is reviewed, with emphasis laid on howthe idea of pinning control can be applied to the flockingcontrol.