Cooperative Containment Formation for Discrete-time Heterogeneous Networks by Double Compensators

In this paper, two practical distributed observers are constructed to solve the cooperative robust containment formation problem for discrete-time linear multi-agent systems. The dynamics of the systems contain uncertain parts. A containment error is presented to guarantee all the outputs of followers converge to the convex hull spanned by the outputs of the leaders. There are two compensators in this paper, we first present a distributed compensator to estimate the information of convex hull, and use an internal compensator to solve the problem of uncertain parts in dynamics. Further more, based on the both compensators, a distributed dynamic output feedback controller is designed to solve the containment control problem for the discrete-time multi-agent systems. Finally, a numerical example is given to verify the effectiveness of the main results.     

Lyapunov-Based Output Containment Control of Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Systems With Markovian Switching Topologies and Distributed Delays

This paper considers the mean square output containment control problem for heterogeneous multi-agent systems(MASs) with randomly switching topologies and nonuniform distributed delays. By modeling the switching topologies as a continuous-time Markov process and taking the distributed delays into consideration, a novel distributed containment observer is proposed to estimate the convex hull spanned by the leaders’ states.A novel distributed output feedback containment controller is then designed...     

Containment control of a class of heterogeneous nonlinear multi-agent systems

This paper studies the containment control of a class of heterogeneous nonlinear multi-agent systems under general directed graph. Every follower agent is a nonlinear system in the output feedback form with the same relative degree. The authors’ goal is to design a distributed dynamic controller such that the outputs of followers enter the convex hull spanned by the outputs of leaders. To this end, the containment problem is converted into a cooperative output regulation problem, a distributed adaptive recursive procedure and the internal model are employed to design the distributed controller.     

Robust containment tracking of uncertain linear multi-agent systems: a non-smooth control approach

This paper addresses the distributed robust containment tracking problem of networked systems with uncertain linear dynamics and multiple controlled leaders. The uncertainty class considered in this paper satisfies some matched conditions. To achieve containment tracking in such a multi-agent system, some distributed controllers consisting of using relative state-based continuous feedback and a non-smooth manoeuvre are developed. By transforming the containment tracking problem into the global robust stabilisation problem of interconnected systems, it is shown that the states of followers will asymptotically converge to a convex hull formed by those of the leaders if the control parameters in the proposed controllers are appropriately selected. It is clearly pointed out that the involved control parameters can be successfully found for solving the containment tracking problem if each follower can be directly or indirectly influenced by at least one leader, and the nominal dynamics of followers are stabilisable. The important issue of how fast containment can be achieved is also addressed. Finally, some numerical simulations are given for illustration.     

Finite-time observers for multi-agent systems without velocity measurements and with input saturations

This paper is devoted to the distributed finite-time observers for multi-agent systems, where the control inputs are required to be bounded and the velocities are assumed to be not available for feedback. An effective framework through defining a class of coordinated saturation functions is introduced, under which both a first-order finite-time observer and a high-order finite-time observer are constructed. By applying the homogeneous theory for stability analysis, it is proven that all the states of the followers can converge to that of the leader in finite time under our proposed observers. With mild modifications of our control strategies, the foregoing results are then extended to the distributed finite-time containment control problem, where the states of the followers converge to the convex hull spanned by the multiple dynamic leaders. Numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the efficiency of our methods.     

Distributed Containment Control of Networked Nonlinear Second-order Systems With Unknown Parameters

In this paper, we study the containment control problem for nonlinear second-order systems with unknown parameters and multiple stationary/dynamic leaders. The topologies that characterize the interaction among the leaders and the followers are directed graphs. Necessary and sufficient criteria which guarantee the control objectives are established for both stationary leaders (regulation case) and dynamic leaders (dynamic tracking case) based protocols. The final states of all the followers are exclusively determined by the initial values of the leaders and the topology structures. In the regulation case, all the followers converge into the convex hull spanned by the leaders, while in the dynamic tracking case, not only the positions of the followers converge into the convex hull but also the velocities of the followers converge into the velocity convex hull of the leaders. Finally, all the theoretical results are illustrated by numerical simulations.      

Adaptive mean-square consensus of heterogeneous multiagent systems with stochastic switching topologies

The leader–following consensus of linear heterogeneous multiagent systems is investigated in this paper. To comply with the most practical scenario, the communicating topologies among agents are assumed to switch stochastically and driven by a continuous-time discrete-state Markov process, whose state space corresponds to all the possible topologies. A novel distributed adaptive compensator is designed for the followers to reconstruct the exogenous signals without knowing the Laplacian matrix who is regarded as a global information, and sufficient conditions are given to ensure the compensator converges to the dynamic of the leader asymptotically in the mean square sense. Then, based on the compensator, we solved the consensus problem both by distributed state and measurement output feedback control schemes under output regulation framework, which allow followers to have nonidentical state dimensions. Finally, the theoretical results are demonstrated by a numerical example.     

A low‐complexity design for distributed containment control of networked pure‐feedback systems and its application to fault‐tolerant control

This paper addresses a low‐complexity distributed containment control problem and its extension to fault‐tolerant control for networked nonlinear pure‐feedback systems under a directed graph. The multiple dynamic leaders are neighbors of only a subset of the followers described by completely non‐affine multi‐input multi‐output pure‐feedback dynamics. It is assumed that all followers' nonlinearities are heterogeneous and unknown. The proposed containment controller is implemented by using only error surfaces integrated by performance bounding functions and does not require any differential equations for compensating uncertainties and faults. Thus, compared with the previous containment control approaches for multi‐agent systems with unknown non‐affine nonlinearities, the distributed containment control structure is simplified. In addition, it is shown that the proposed control scheme can be applied to the fault‐tolerant containment control problem in the presence of unexpected system and actuator faults, without reconstructing any control structure. It is shown from Lyapunov stability theorem that all followers nearly converge to the dynamic convex hull spanned by the dynamic leaders and the containment control errors are preserved within certain given predefined bounds. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

二阶有向网络的鲁棒有限时间包容控制

在考虑非线性干扰和跟随者速度不可测的情况下,研究二阶有向网络的有限时间估计和鲁棒包容控制问题.提出含有估计层、控制层和跟随者层的新型分布式控制结构.应用有限时间稳定性理论和等效输出注入的思想,设计幂次估计器和滑模估计器,并给出网络误差的有限时间估计.进而采用齐次理论和滑模方法设计非光滑控制协议,驱使跟随者在有限时间内收敛并保持在领航者所构成的动态凸包中,且有效抑制干扰.仿真结果验证了理论分析的正确性.     

Event-triggered distributed containment control of heterogeneous linear multi-agent systems by an output regulation approach

In this paper, the event-triggered distributed containment control of heterogeneous linear multi-agent systems in the output regulation framework is studied. The leaders are treated as exosystems and the containment control problem will be converted into an output regulation problem. An event-triggered protocol is then designed for each follower by the output information of neighbours. It is proved that the followers can asymptotically converge to the dynamic convex hull spanned by multiple leaders under the designed protocol and triggered strategy. Furthermore, it is shown that the proposed protocol and triggered condition can exclude Zeno behaviour, so the feasibility of the control strategy is verified. Finally, a numerical simulation is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed protocol.     

Event-based broadcasting containment control for multi-agent systems under directed topology

The event-based broadcasting containment control problem for both first-order and second-order multi-agent systems under directed topology is investigated. Based on certain event, each agent decides when to transmit its current states to its neighbours and the agents’ distributed control algorithms are based on these sampled state measurements, which can significantly decrease the number of the controllers’ updates. All the agents are divided into two groups, namely, the leaders and the followers. The formation control is introduced. The leaders exchange their information to converge to a formation. The followers utilise the information from both their leader neighbours and their follower neighbours and are driven to the convex hull of the leaders using the proposed control algorithms. Numerical simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical results.     

Robust H∞ containment control for uncertain multi-agent systems with inherent nonlinear dynamics

This article considers the distributed containment control problem of nonlinear multi-agent systems subject to parameter uncertainties and external disturbances. An appropriate controlled output function is defined to quantitatively analyse the effect of external disturbances on the containment control problem. By employing robust H_∞ control approach, sufficient conditions in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) are derived to ensure that all followers asymptotically converge to the convex hull spanned by the leaders with the prescribed H_∞ performance under fixed topology. Moreover, the unknown feedback matrix of the proposed protocol is determined by solving only two LMIs with the same dimensions as a single agent. Finally, a numerical example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of our theoretical results.     

Distributed Containment Control for Nonlinear Multi‐Agent Systems with Time‐Delayed Protocol

In this paper, the containment control problem is considered for nonlinear multi‐agent systems with directed communication topology. Under the guidance of designed distributed communication protocols with/without previous state information, the followers are expected to converge to a dynamic convex hull spanned by multiple leaders. Two multi‐step algorithms are proposed to construct the corresponding protocols, the state feedback protocol and the delay‐coupled protocol, under which the containment control can be achieved asymptotically. Furthermore, it is found that the delay‐coupled protocol is rather sensitive to time delays. That is, real‐time tracking will become impossible by only using long‐dated previous state information. Finally, a numerical example is given to demonstrate the applicability and efficiency of the proposed schemes.     

Observer-based event-triggered containment control of multi-agent systems with time delay

This paper studies the containment control of general linear multi-agent systems with or without time delay. The observer-based event-triggered control schemes will be considered. For the conventional distributed containment control protocol, we will not update the relative state continuously, i.e. the relative state will be updated by some events which happen intermittently. A completely decentralised event trigger will be designed for leader–follower systems. Under the proposed protocol, if we design some appropriate feedback gain matrices, all followers will asymptotically converge to the convex hull spanned by the dynamic leaders. Numerical simulations are also provided and the results show highly consistent with the theoretical results.     

Distributed adaptive formation tracking for heterogeneous multiagent systems with multiple nonidentical leaders and without well‐informed follower

This paper studies the time‐varying output formation tracking (OFT) problems for linear heterogeneous multiagent systems with multiple leaders, where both the followers and the leaders can have nonidentical dynamics and dimensions. The existing results on formation tracking with multiple leaders depend on the assumption that each follower is well‐informed or uninformed, where the well‐informed follower has all the leaders as its neighbor. To remove this assumption, a novel OFT approach is presented using a distributed observer scheme. Firstly, based on the local estimation and the interaction with neighboring followers, a fully distributed observer is designed for each follower to estimate the dynamical matrices and the states of multiple leaders without requiring the well‐informed follower assumption. The convergence of the distributed observer is proved by using Lyapunov theory. Then, an adaptive algorithm is proposed to solve the regulator equations in finite time based on the estimation of the leaders' dynamical matrices. Furthermore, the desired time‐varying output formation of each follower is generated by a local active exosystem. A time‐varying OFT protocol is presented using the estimated states of multiple leaders, the online solutions of the regulator equations, and the desired formation vector generated by the local exosystem. It is proved that the outputs of the followers can not only realize the expected formation shape but also track the predefined convex combination of multiple leaders. Finally, a simulation example is given to verify the theoretical results.     

Distributed adaptive containment control of networked flexible-joint robots using neural networks

This study presents a distributed adaptive containment control approach for a group of uncertain flexible-joint (FJ) robots with multiple dynamic leaders under a directed communication graph. The leaders are neighbors of only a subset of the followers. The derivatives of the leaders are unknown, namely, the position information of the leaders is only available for implementing the proposed control approach. The local adaptive dynamic surface containment controller for each follower is designed using only neighbors’ information to guarantee that all followers converge to the dynamic convex hull spanned by the dynamic leaders. The function approximation technique using neural networks is employed to estimate the model uncertainties of each follower. It is proved that the containment control errors converge to an adjustable neighborhood of the origin regardless of model uncertainties and the lack of shared communication information. Simulation results for FJ manipulators are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive containment control scheme.     

Distributed containment control with multiple stationary or dynamic leaders in fixed and switching directed networks

In this paper, we study the problem of distributed containment control of a group of mobile autonomous agents with multiple stationary or dynamic leaders under both fixed and switching directed network topologies. First, when the leaders are stationary and all followers share an inertial coordinate frame, we present necessary and sufficient conditions on the fixed or switching directed network topology such that all followers will ultimately converge to the stationary convex hull formed by the stationary leaders for arbitrary initial states in a space of any finite dimension. When the directed network topology is fixed, we partition the (nonsymmetric) Laplacian matrix and explore its properties to derive the convergence results. When the directed network topology is switching, the commonly adopted decoupling technique based on the Kronecker product in a high-dimensional space can no longer be applied and we hence present an important coordinate transformation technique to derive the convergence results. The proposed coordinate transformation technique also has potential applications in other high-dimensional distributed control scenarios and might be used to simplify the analysis of a high-dimensional system to that of a one-dimensional system when the decoupling technique based on the Kronecker product cannot be applied. Second, when the leaders are dynamic and all followers share an inertial coordinate frame, we propose a distributed tracking control algorithm without velocity measurements. When the directed network topology is fixed, we derive conditions on the network topology and the control gain to guarantee that all followers will ultimately converge to the dynamic convex hull formed by the dynamic leaders for arbitrary initial states in a space of any finite dimension. When the directed network topology is switching, we derive conditions on the network topology and the control gain such that all followers will ultimately converge to the minimal hyperrectangle that contains the dynamic leaders and each of its hyperplanes is normal to one axis of the inertial coordinate frame in any high-dimensional space. We also show via some counterexamples that it is, in general, impossible to find distribute containment control algorithms without velocity measurements to guarantee that all followers will ultimately converge to the convex hull formed by the dynamic leaders under a switching network topology in a high-dimensional space. Simulation results are presented as a proof of concept.     

欠驱动无人船非奇异固定时间鲁棒包容控制

针对外界干扰下的欠驱动无人船包容控制问题,提出一种新型非奇异固定时间滑模控制策略.整个控制器设计过程分为运动学回路设计和动力学回路设计.在运动学回路设计中,利用图论知识和固定时间稳定性理论设计非奇异固定时间分布式虚拟控制律,使得所有跟随船在固定时间内收敛于领导船张成的凸包内;在动力学回路设计中,为实现对虚拟控制律的跟踪控制,利用固定时间滑模控制法设计鲁棒包容控制律.最后,证明系统跟踪误差在固定时间收敛于平衡点,且与船舶的初始状态无关.仿真结果验证了所提出控制策略的有效性.     

Distributed Adaptive Dynamic Surface Containment Control for Uncertain Multiple Euler-Lagrange Systems

This paper investigates the distributed containment control for a class of uncertain multiple Euler- Lagrange systems. A directed graph is used to characterize the interactions among the leaders and followers. The proposed approach is based on an adaptive dynamic surface control, where the system uncertainties are approximately modelled by interval type-2 fuzzy neural networks. The adaptive laws of neuro-fuzzy parameters are derived from the Lyapunov stability analysis. The robust stability of the closed-loop system is guaranteed, and then all followers can converge into the convex hull spanned by the dynamic leaders. In this study, a systematic control scheme is proposed and several indexes are used for performance comparisons. Simulation results are also provided to reveal the superiority of the proposed distributed adaptive containment controller.     

Necessary and sufficient conditions for containment control of networked multi-agent systems

In this paper, containment control problems for networked multi-agent systems with multiple stationary or dynamic leaders are investigated. The topologies that characterize the interaction among the leaders and the followers are directed graphs. Necessary and sufficient criteria which guarantee the achievement of containment control are established for both continuous-time and sampled-data based protocols. When the leaders are stationary, the convergence for continuous-time protocol (sampled-data based protocol) is completely dependent on the topology structure (both the topology structure and the size of sampling period). When the leaders are dynamic, the convergence for continuous-time protocol (sampled-data based protocol) is completely dependent on the topology structure and the gain parameters (the topology structure, the gain parameters, and the size of sampling period). Moreover, the final states of all the followers are exclusively determined by the initial values of the leaders and the topology structure. In the stationary leaders case, all the followers will move into the convex hull spanned by the leaders, while in the dynamic leaders case, the followers will not only move into the convex hull but also move with the leaders with the same velocity. Finally, all the theoretical results are illustrated by numerical simulations.