Distributed observer‐based leader‐follower attitude consensus control for multiple rigid bodies using rotation matrices

This paper addresses the distributed observer‐based leader‐follower attitude consensus control problem for multiple rigid bodies. An intrinsic distributed observer is proposed for each follower to estimate the leader's trajectory, which is only available to a subset of followers. The proposed observer can guarantee that the estimated attitude evolves on rotation matrices all the time, and it provides us with a simple way to design the attitude consensus control law. The dynamics of rigid bodies and distributed observer are both modeled directly on rotation matrices, so that the singularity and ambiguity can be avoided. Furthermore, adopting the idea of disturbance observer on vector space, a gyro bias observer on the rotation matrices is proposed. Based on the distributed observer, three types of attitude consensus control law are proposed, which are respectively on the basis of full‐state, biased angular velocity, and external disturbance combined with biased angular velocity. Finally, the SimMechanics experiments are provided to illustrate effectiveness of the proposed theoretical results.     

The leader-following attitude control of multiple rigid spacecraft systems

In this paper, we consider the leader-following consensus problem for a multiple rigid spacecraft system whose attitude is represented by the unit quaternion. Most results on this problem rely on the assumption that every follower can access the state of the leader and are obtained via a decentralized control manner. By developing a nonlinear distributed observer for the leader system, we can solve this problem via a distributed control scheme under the mild assumptions that the state of the leader can reach every follower through a path and that the communication between followers is bidirectional. Moreover, our result can accommodate a class of desired angular velocities generated by a marginally stable linear autonomous system.     

Leader‐following attitude consensus of multiple uncertain spacecraft systems subject to external disturbance

The attitude consensus problem of multiple rigid spacecraft systems is one of the key issues in spacecraft formation flying and has been extensively studied. In this paper, we further consider the leader‐following attitude consensus problem of multiple rigid uncertain spacecraft systems subject to a class of multi‐tone sinusoidal disturbances with arbitrarily unknown amplitudes, initial phases, frequencies, and constant biases. In contrast to the existing results, in order to achieve asymptotic reference tracking and disturbance rejection by smooth control, we have integrated the distributed observer approach with internal model and adaptive control techniques. Simulation results are shown to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control law. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robust formation control of multiagent systems on the Lie group SE(3)

This paper addresses the robust formation control problem of multiple rigid bodies whose kinematics and dynamics evolve on the Lie group SE(3). First, it is assumed that all followers have access to the state information of a virtual leader. Then, a novel adaptive super‐twisting sliding mode control with an intrinsic proportional‐integral‐derivative sliding surface is proposed for the formation control problem of multiagent system using a virtual structure (VS) approach. The advantages of this control scheme are twofold: elimination of the chattering phenomenon without affecting the control performance and no requirement of prior knowledge about the upper bound of uncertainty/disturbance due to adaptive‐tuning law. Since the VS method is suffering from the disadvantages of centralized control, in the second step, considering a network as an undirected connected graph, we assume that only a few agents have access to the state information of the leader. Afterward, using the gradient of modified error function, a distributed adaptive velocity‐free consensus‐based formation control law is proposed where reduced‐order observers are introduced to remove the requirements of velocity measurements. Furthermore, to relax the requirement that all agents have access to the states of the leader, a distributed finite‐time super‐twisting sliding mode estimator is proposed to obtain an accurate estimation of the leader's states in a finite time for each agent. In both steps, the proposed control schemes are directly developed on the Lie group SE(3) to avoid singularity and ambiguities associated with the attitude representations. Numerical simulation results illustrated the effectiveness of the proposed control schemes.     

Kinematic control of free rigid bodies using dual quaternions

This paper proposes a new type of control laws for free rigid bodies. The start point is the dual quaternion and its characteristics. The logarithm of a dual quaternion is defined, based on which kinematic control laws can be developed. Global exponential convergence is achieved using logarithmic feedback via a generalized proportional control law, and an appropriate Lyapunov function is constructed to prove the stability. Both the regulation and tracking problems are tackled. Omnidirectional control is discussed as a case study. As the control laws can handle the interconnection between the rotation and translation of a rigid body, they are shown to be more applicable than the conventional method.     

Observer‐based leaderless and leader‐following consensus for multiagent systems: A modified integral‐type event‐triggered design

This article aims to solve leaderless and leader‐following consensus problems for general linear systems by integral‐type event‐triggered control method. Different from the existing integral‐type event‐triggered controllers for multiagent systems (MASs), a modified distributed integral‐type event‐triggered scheme is designed via defining a measurement error without continuous communication. Then, distributed event‐triggered protocols are proposed for MASs to achieve the leaderless and leader‐following consensus. Moreover, for the case that all the agents' states are not available, distributed observers are given to estimate the full states. Meanwhile, leaderless and leader‐following consensus problems are investigated based on the observer‐based event‐triggered schemes. In addition, no agent will exhibit Zeno behavior. Finally, simulations are given to verify the effectiveness of our results.     

Almost global finite‐time stabilization of rigid body attitude dynamics using rotation matrices

This work considers continuous finite‐time stabilization of rigid body attitude dynamics using a coordinate‐free representation of attitude on the Lie group of rigid body rotations in three dimensions, SO(3). Using a Hölder continuous Morse–Lyapunov function, a finite‐time feedback stabilization scheme for rigid body attitude motion to a desired attitude with continuous state feedback is obtained. Attitude feedback control with finite‐time convergence has been considered in the past using the unit quaternion representation. However, it is known that the unit quaternion representation of attitude is ambiguous, with two antipodal unit quaternions representing a single rigid body attitude. Continuous feedback control using unit quaternions may therefore lead to the unstable unwinding phenomenon if this ambiguity is not resolved in the control design, and this has adverse effects on actuators, settling time, and control effort expended. The feedback control law designed here leads to almost global finite‐time stabilization of the attitude motion of a rigid body with Hölder continuous feedback to the desired attitude. As a result, this control scheme avoids chattering in the presence of measurement noise, does not excite unmodeled high‐frequency structural dynamics, and can be implemented with actuators that can only provide continuous control inputs. Numerical simulation results for a spacecraft in low Earth orbit, obtained using a Lie group variational integrator, confirm the theoretically obtained stability and robustness properties of this attitude feedback stabilization scheme. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distributed event-triggered cooperative attitude control of multiple rigid bodies with leader–follower architecture

In this note, the distributed event-triggered cooperative attitude control of multiple rigid bodies with leader–follower architecture is investigated, where both the cases of static and dynamic leaders are all considered. Two distributed triggering procedures are first introduced for the followers and leaders, and then the distributed cooperative controllers are designed under the proposed triggering schemes. Under the designed controllers with the event-triggered strategies, it is shown that the orientations of followers converge to the convex hull formed by the desired leaders’ orientations with zero angular velocities. Moreover, the communication pressure in network is reduced and the energy of each agent is saved. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Quaternion-based attitude synchronisation for multiple rigid bodies in the presence of actuator saturation

This paper concentrates on the quaternion-based attitude synchronisation problems of networked rigid bodies under fixed and undirected communication topology without relative angular measurements in the presence of actuator saturation. We first consider the leaderless attitude synchronisation problem with zero final angular velocity. In this case, we not only discuss the performance under the acyclic communication topology with the proposed bounded control algorithm, but also analyse that if there exist cycles in the topology, the proposed bounded algorithm guarantees that all equilibrium points are unstable except that the attitudes of networked rigid bodies achieve synchronisation. We also expand the result to the case of attitude tracking synchronisation with a static leader in the presence of actuator saturation. Next, the tracking synchronisation problem with the desired time-varying attitude is addressed in the presence of actuator saturation. Numerical examples are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed bounded schemes and illustrate the performances of multiple rigid bodies.     

Distributed fixed‐time attitude coordination control for multiple rigid spacecraft

In this paper, the fixed‐time attitude coordination control for multiple rigid spacecraft under an undirected communication graph is investigated. By using the backstepping technique, the distributed fixed‐time observer, and the method of “adding a power integrator,” a distributed fixed‐time attitude coordination control law is designed for a group of spacecraft. The proposed control scheme is nonsingular and can guarantee a group of rigid spacecraft simultaneously tracking a common desired attitude within fixed time even when the time‐varying reference attitude is available only to a subset of the group members. Rigorous analysis is provided to show that the attitude consensus tracking errors can converge to the origin in finite time which is bounded by a fixed constant independent of initial conditions. Numerical simulations are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control law.     

Pose consensus in networks of heterogeneous robots with variable time delays

This paper proposes a novel pose (position and orientation) consensus controller for networks of heterogeneous robots modeled in the operational space. The proposed controller is a distributed proportional plus damping scheme that, with a slight modification, solves both the leader–follower and leaderless consensus problems. A singularity‐free representation, unit quaternion, is used to describe the robots orientation, and the network is represented by an undirected and connected interconnection graph. Furthermore, it is shown that the controller is robust to interconnection variable time delays. Experiments with a network of two 6‐degrees‐of‐freedom robots are presented to illustrate the performance of the proposed scheme. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Global finite-time attitude consensus tracking control for a group of rigid spacecraft

The problem of finite-time attitude consensus for multiple rigid spacecraft with a leader–follower architecture is investigated in this paper. To achieve the finite-time attitude consensus, at the first step, a distributed finite-time convergent observer is proposed for each follower to estimate the leader's attitude in a finite time. Then based on the terminal sliding mode control method, a new finite-time attitude tracking controller is designed such that the leader's attitude can be tracked in a finite time. Finally, a finite-time observer-based distributed control strategy is proposed. It is shown that the attitude consensus can be achieved in a finite time under the proposed controller. Simulation results are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Rigid body attitude coordination without inertial frame information

We study a motion coordination problem where the objective is to achieve identical orientation and synchronous rotation for a group of rigid bodies. Unlike existing designs which assume that the inertial frame is available to each agent, we develop a passivity-based design which relies only on relative attitude information with respect to neighboring agents. The desired equilibria, where all the rigid bodies possess the same attitude and rotate at a desired angular velocity, are shown to be locally asymptotically stable and a manifold of undesired equilibria may exist. We then consider the situation where the reference angular velocity is available only to the leader, and propose a distributed adaptive controller with which the other agents reconstruct this reference angular velocity.     

空间多刚体系统姿态的协同控制

将一种针对多个一般非线性系统的基于输出反馈的协同控制方法应用在采用四元数法描述的空间多个刚体姿态的协同控制系统中去，给出了空间多刚体系统姿态协同控制问题有解的充分条件，并设计了多刚体系统姿态的协同控制律．算例仿真结果表明，此法设计的协同控制器能够稳定控制描述各个刚体系统的姿态四元数，使其渐近稳定．     

Discrete‐time global leader‐following consensus of a group of general linear systems using bounded controls

This paper deals with the problem of global leader‐following consensus of a group of discrete‐time general linear systems with bounded controls. For each follower agent in the group, we construct both a bounded state feedback control law and a bounded output feedback control law. The feedback laws for each input of an agent use a multi‐hop relay protocol, in which the agent obtains the information of other agents through multi‐hop paths in the communication network. The number of hops each agent uses to obtain its information about other agents for an input is less than or equal to the sum of the number of real eigenvalues on the unit circle and the number of pairs of complex eigenvalues on the unit circle of the subsystem corresponding to the input, and the feedback gains are constructed from the adjacency matrix of the communication network. We show that these control laws achieve global leader‐following consensus when the communication topology among follower agents forms a strongly connected and detailed balanced directed graph and the leader is a neighbor of at least one follower agent. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Observer‐based leader‐following consensus of uncertain nonlinear multi‐agent systems

In this paper, the leader‐following consensus problem of uncertain high‐order nonlinear multi‐agent systems on directed graph with a fixed topology is studied, where it is assumed that the relative states of a follower and its neighbors are immeasurable and only the relative outputs are available. Nonlinear adaptive observers are firstly proposed for each follower to estimate the states of it and its neighbors, and an observer‐based distributed adaptive control scheme is constructed to guarantee that all followers asymptotically synchronize to a leader with tracking errors being semi‐globally uniform ultimate bounded. On the basis of algebraic graph theory and Lyapunov theory, the closed‐loop system stability analysis is conducted. Finally, numerical simulations are presented to illustrate the effectiveness and potential of the proposed new design techniques. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distributed fault‐tolerant control design for spacecraft finite‐time attitude synchronization

This paper develops two distributed finite‐time fault‐tolerant control algorithms for attitude synchronization of multiple spacecraft with a dynamic virtual leader in the presence of modeling uncertainties, external disturbances, and actuator faults. The leader gives commands only to a subset of the followers, and the communication flow between followers is directed. By employing a novel distributed nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode and adaptive mechanism, a distributed finite‐time fault‐tolerant control law is proposed to guarantee all the follower spacecraft that finite‐time track a dynamic virtual leader. Then utilizing three distributed finite‐time sliding mode estimators, an estimator‐based distributed finite‐time fault‐tolerant control law is proposed using only the followers' estimates of the virtual leader. Both of them do not require online identification of the actuator faults and provide robustness, finite‐time convergence, fault‐tolerant, disturbance rejection, and high control precision. Finally, numerical simulations are presented to evaluate the theoretical results. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Time-varying formation control with attitude synchronization of multiple rigid body systems

In this article, we study the leader-following formation control problem for a group of rigid body systems whose followers' motions are described by dual quaternion equations. A few features are as follows. First, we introduce an exosystem to generate the leader's trajectory as well as the formation configuration, which can produce a large class of time-varying signals so that we can achieve a variety of time-varying formations. Second, to overcome the communication constraint described by a digraph, we extend the distributed observer to estimate not only the desired attitude and angular velocity but also the leader's position and linear velocity. Third, a novel distributed control law is synthesized to furnish a rigorous performance analysis of the closed-loop system. The effectiveness of our design is illustrated by a numerical example.     

Consensus analysis for leader‐following multi‐agent systems with second‐order individual dynamics and arbitrary sampling

This paper performs a consensus analysis of leader‐following multi‐agent systems with multiple double integrators in the framework of sampled‐data control. Both single‐leader and multiple‐leader scenarios are considered under the assumption of networks with detectable position‐like state information. The coordination tasks are accomplished by a given protocol with the robustness against the change of sampling periods. The sampling periods can be chosen to be of an arbitrary fixed length or large time‐varying length. Under the proposed protocol, we achieve two objectives: (i) in the single leader‐subgroup case, all followers reach an agreement with leaders on states asymptotically and (ii) in the multiple leader‐subgroup case, each follower converges to some convex combination of the final states of all leaders. It is shown that the final state configuration of the convex combination is uniquely determined by the underlying interaction topology, which can be any weakly connected graph. Compared with the existing results on leader‐following networks, the consensus problem and the containment problem are solved in a unified framework with large sampling periods. Some numerical experiments are conducted to illustrate the dynamic behavior of all agents with this protocol. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distributed Adaptive Event‐Triggered Control for Leader‐Following Consensus of Multi‐Agent Systems

This paper studies the leader‐following consensus problem for Lipschitz nonlinear multi‐agent systems using novel event‐triggered controllers. A distributed adaptive law is introduced for the event‐based control strategy design such that the proposed controllers are independent of system parameters and only use the relative states of neighboring agents, and hence are fully distributed. Due to the introduction of an event‐triggered control scheme, the controller of the agent is only triggered at it's own event times, and thus reduces the amount of communication between controller and actuator and lowers the frequency of controller updates in practice. Based on a quadratic Lyapunov function, the event condition which uses only neighbor information and local computation at trigger instants is established. Infinite triggers within a finite time are also verified to be impossible. The effectiveness of the theoretical results are illustrated through simulation examples.