This paper investigates the cooperative formation problem via impulsive control for a class of networked Euler–Lagrange systems. To reduce the energy consumption and communication frequency, the impulsive control method and cooperative formation control approach are combined. With the consideration of system uncertainties and communication delays among agents, neural networks-based adaptive technique is used for the controller design. Firstly, under the constraint that each agent interacts with its neighbors only at some sampling moments, an adaptive neural-networks impulsive formation control algorithm is proposed for the networked uncertain Euler–Lagrange systems without communication delays. Using Lyapunov stability theory and Laplacian potential function in the graph theory, we conclude that the formation can be achieved by properly choosing the constant control gains. Further, when considering communication delays,a modified impulsive formation control algorithm is proposed, in which the extended Halanay differential inequality is used to analyze the stability of the impulsive delayed dynamical systems. Finally, numerical examples and performance comparisons with continuous algorithm are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods. This paper investigates the cooperative formation problem via impulsive control for a class of networked Euler-Lagrange systems. To reduce the energy consumption and communication frequency, the impulsive control method and cooperative formation control approach are combined. With the consideration of system uncertainties and communication delays Among the agents, neural networks-based adaptive techniques is used for the controller design. -Lagrange systems without communication delays. Using Lyapunov stability theory and Laplacian potential function in the graph theory, we conclude that the formation can be achieved by properly choosing the constant control gains. Further, when considering communication delays, a modified impulsive formation control algorithm is proposed, i n which the extended Halanay differential inequality is used to analyze the stability of the impulsive delayed dynamical systems. Finally, numerical examples and performance comparisons with continuous algorithm are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.