This article is concerned with the fault‐tolerant mixed
scriptH∞/passive synchronization problem for chaotic neural networks by sampled‐data control scheme. The objective is focused on the design of a reliable controller such that the mixed
scriptH∞/passivity performance level of the resulting synchronization error system is ensured in the presence of actuator failures. A time‐dependent Lyapunov functional and an improved reciprocally convex approach combined with a novel integral inequality are applied to optimize the availability of the information on the actual sampling pattern. Then, some sufficient conditions of mixed
scriptH∞/passivity performance analysis for the synchronization error systems are derived. A desired reliable sampled‐data controller is designed by solving the optimization problems. Finally, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, a practical chaotic neural networks is provided. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 21: 246–259, 2016