An event-triggered control approach for the leader-tracking problem with heterogeneous agents

This paper presents an event-triggered control and communication framework for the cooperative leader-tracking problem with communication constraints. Continuous communication among agents is not assumed in this work and decentralised event-based strategies are proposed for agents with heterogeneous linear dynamics. Also, the leader dynamics are unknown and only intermittent measurements of its states are obtained by a subset of the followers. The event-based method not only represents a way to restrict communication among agents, but it also provides a decentralised scheme for scheduling information broadcasts. Notably, each agent is able to determine its own broadcasting instants independently of any other agent in the network. In an extension, the case where transmission of information is affected by time-varying communication delays is addressed. Finally, positive lower-bounds on the inter-event time intervals are obtained in order to show that Zeno behaviour does not exist and, therefore, continuous exchange of information is never needed in this framework.     

Synchronisation of linear high-order multi-agent systems via event-triggered control with limited communication

In this paper, the synchronisation problems of multi-agent systems with asynchronous and synchronous event-triggered control under a novel event-triggered condition are solved. Our event-triggered control protocols only require each agent to send its state information to its neighbouring agents when an event-triggered condition is satisfied. Such control protocols substantially reduce the cost of communication. It is worth mentioning that the proposed protocols also ensure that the synchronisation of the multi-agent system with asynchronous and synchronous event-triggered can be achieved asymptotically without Zeno-behaviour. Meanwhile, an ultimate synchronisation trajectory is given. Moreover, our results are applied to solve the formation control problem. Some numerical simulations are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of our protocols.     

Decentralised consensus for multiple Lagrangian systems based on event-triggered strategy

This paper considers the decentralised event-triggered consensus problem for multi-agent systems with Lagrangian dynamics under undirected graphs. First, a distributed, leaderless, and event-triggered consensus control algorithm is presented based on the definition of generalised positions and velocities for all agents. There is only one triggering function for both the generalised positions and velocities and no Zeno behaviour exhibited under the proposed consensus strategy. Second, an adaptive event-triggered consensus control algorithm is proposed for such multi-agent systems with unknown constant parameters. Third, based on sliding-mode method, an event-triggered consensus control algorithm is considered for the case with external disturbance. Finally, simulation results are given to illustrate the theoretical results.     

Asynchronous decentralised event-triggered control of multi-agent systems

In this paper, the consensus problem of first-order multi-agent systems under linear asynchronous decentralised event-triggered control is investigated. Both undirected and directed topologies are considered. In the analysis, the closed-loop multi-agent systems with the event-triggered control are modelled as switched systems. After proposing the decentralised event-triggered consensus protocols, decentralised state-dependent event conditions are derived, which act as switching signals. The consensus analyses are performed based on graph theory and stability results of switched systems. Under the event-triggered control schemes presented, consensus is reached with enlarged sampling periods and no Zeno behaviour. Simulation examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed theoretical results.     

基于鞍点法的自适应分布式资源分配算法

研究一类带有不等式约束为凸函数的多智能体系统分布式资源分配问题.在资源分配问题中,各智能体拥有仅自身可知的局部成本函数和局部凸不等式约束.分布式资源分配旨在如何利用智能体间的信息交互设计一种分布式优化算法,完成定量资源分配的同时还保证最小化全局成本函数.针对该问题,基于卡罗需-库恩-塔克条件和比例积分控制思想,首先提出一种自适应分布式优化算法,其中凸不等式约束的对偶变量可实现自适应获取;然后,为了降低系统的通信资源消耗,设计一种动态事件触发控制策略以实现离散时间通信的分布式资源分配算法;最后,通过数值仿真验证所设计算法的有效性.     

Bipartite Byzantine-resilient event-triggered consensus control of heterogeneous multi-agent systems

This article studies the bipartite resilient event-triggered consensus control for a class of the heterogeneous multi-agent systems. Due to the external cyberattacks, some agents may become the Byzantine agents and will affect the behavior of the other agents. To improve the security of the multi-agent systems against the Byzantine agents, a novel bipartite event-triggered heterogeneous mean-subsequence-reduced algorithm is designed. First, to handle the heterogeneous multi-agent systems, a state transformation is carefully designed, to facilitate the design and analysis of the bipartite resilient consensus algorithm. Based upon the designed state transformation, the bipartite resilient control inputs are constructed, where the structural balance analysis shows that the resulting effective signed graph and the equivalent signed graph are both structurally balanced, if the signed graph of the multi-agent systems is structurally balanced. In addition, a dynamic event-triggered mechanism is proposed, where a set of dynamic factors are introduced into the event-triggered functions to prevent the usage of the global topology information. By virtue of the designed algorithm, it is guaranteed that the heterogeneous multi-agent systems can achieve the bipartite consensus in the presence of the Byzantine agents, and the communication burden among the agents can be reduced. The numerical simulations are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.     

Actuator saturation and anti-windup compensation in event-triggered control

Event-triggered control aims at reducing the communication load over the feedback link in networked control systems by sending information only if certain event conditions, which guarantee a desired control performance, are satisfied. This article investigates the consequences of actuator saturation on the behavior of the event-triggered control loop in terms of its stability and information exchange. Stability properties are derived using linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) which show how the stability of the event-triggered control loop depends on the selection of the event threshold. Moreover, it is shown that a lower bound on the minimum inter-event time exists being likewise affected by the event threshold. As actuator saturation might severely degrade the performance of the event-triggered closed-loop system, the scheme is extended by incorporating an anti-windup mechanism in order to overcome this problem. The results are illustrated by simulations and experiments.     

无人艇全分布式动态事件触发编队控制

针对通信资源受限的多无人艇(USV)编队控制问题, 本文提出了一种动态事件触发数据传输机制以降低通信频率, 减少控制算法对系统带宽的占用. 首先, 基于滑模和自适应控制算法设计一种全分布式编队控制器, 使得所有编队成员在保持预设队形的同时能够完成对期望轨迹的跟踪. 与现有编队控制器相比, 该控制器不需要通信网络的全局信息. 然后, 基于Lyapunov稳定性理论证明了编队跟踪误差以及所有闭环信号都能达到稳定状态. 此外,该算法能够保证触发时间序列不表现出Zeno行为. 最后, 通过数值仿真验证了全分布式编队控制器的有效性     

基于事件驱动的二次凸优化问题分布式优化算法

针对多智能体系统中等式约束下的二次凸优化问题,给出一种事件驱动机制下的分布式优化算法.该算法可以降低每个智能体控制协议的更新频率以及智能体之间的通信负担.基于图论和李雅普诺夫函数方法给出两种不同的事件触发条件,其中第2种事件触发条件不需要拉普拉斯矩阵的最大特征根的信息,可实现算法全分布式实施.两种事件触发条件均可实现算法渐近收敛到优化值,避免智能体控制协议的连续更新以及智能体之间的连续通信,同时保证每个智能体相邻事件触发时刻的时间间隔大于0,避免持续事件触发.将所提出的算法应用于Matlab仿真环境中进行仿真验证,仿真结果验证了所提出算法的有效性.     

Observer-based event-triggered leader-following control of a class of linear multi-agent systems

This paper addresses an observer-based consensus problem for leader-following control of a class of linear multi-agent systems (MASs) under a directed communication topology via event-triggered approaches. State observers are employed to tackle the scenario wherein inner information of the follower agents are not available for measurement. And then, an observer-based distributed leader-following control scheme is developed on the basis of event-triggered mechanisms. Further, to avoid continuous measurement information monitor, we present a technical approach for generation of the combinational information from their own neighbouring agents only at triggered instants. In theory, the stability of the resulting closed-loop system is rigorously investigated, and it is proven that all signals in the closed-loop system are bounded and Zeno behaviour is also excluded. Finally, simulation examples are presented for illustration of the theoretical claims.     

Edge event-triggered control for multi-agent systems under directed communication topologies

The edge event-triggered consensus control for multi-agent systems with single- or double-integrator dynamics under directed communication topologies is investigated in this paper. With the edge event-triggered sampling strategies, a class of novel consensus protocols is proposed to reduce control update frequency. The main features of the proposed edge event-triggered control include three aspects: (i) measurement errors are defined based on directed information flow and thus they allow that the communication topology is directed, (ii) each individual controller updates its output only when the associated edge event occurs and the control actions are independent of other agents, and (iii) the proposed edge event-triggered control does not exhibit Zeno behaviour and it is shown that the inter-event intervals are lower bounded by a positive constant. In the consensus analysis, matrix transformation techniques are used to convert the high-dimensional system into a low-dimensional system, and some sufficient consensus conditions are derived for the multi-agent systems with single- or double-integrator dynamics. Finally, the effectiveness of the edge event-triggered sampling strategies is illustrated by simulations.     

基于事件触发的分布式优化算法

本文研究了一类分布式优化问题,其目标是通过局部信息交换使由局部成本函数之和构成的全局成本函数最小.针对无向连通图,我们提出了两种基于比例积分策略的分布式优化算法.在局部成本函数可微且凸的条件下,证明了所提算法渐近收敛到全局最小值点.更进一步,在局部成本函数具有局部Lipschitz梯度和全局成本函数关于全局最小值点是有...     

Consensus of multi-agent systems via intermittent event-triggered control

This paper addresses the consensus issue for multi-agent systems with fixed directed interaction topology, and each agent is supposed to have nonlinear dynamics. By introducing the event-triggered mechanism into intermittent control, suitable consensus protocols are provided, which can save communication resources and reduce the number of control updates. Based on the Lyapunov functional method and stability analysis for switching systems, both centralised and decentralised event-triggered strategies for consensus are proposed. Furthermore, the proof of Zeno behaviour being excluded is given. Finally, some numerical examples are shown to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.     

Distributed event-triggered generalized Nash equilibrium seeking in multi-coalition noncooperative games with coupling constraints

This paper is concerned with a multi-coalition noncooperative game with coupling equality constraints. Each coalition is a player consisted of multiple agents in noncooperative games and desire to minimize its own objective function based on local information. Each agent as actual decision maker in the same coalition is to optimize the objective function of the coalition cooperately. To seek a generalized Nash equilibrium (GNE) of the multi-coalition game, a distributed continuous-time algorithm is developed. Moreover, to further reduce the communication among agents and coalitions, an event-triggered mechanism (ETM) is introduced for the multi-coalition game. By using ETM, a novel distributed GNE seeking algorithm is proposed, where agents and coalitions are allowed to exchange estimation information with neighbors only when the triggering condition is satisfied. Remarkably, the proposed event-triggered scheme introduces internal variables to regulate its threshold dynamically, which excludes Zeno behavior. By Lyapunov analysis, it is proved that the coalitions' decision variables converge to a GNE in both algorithms. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed methods is validated by numerical simulations.     

Distributed event-triggered consensus for multi-agent systems with quantisation

This paper studies the consensus problem for multi-agent systems with quantised information communication via event-triggered control. First, the asynchronous event-triggered control for multi-agent systems is considered based on distributed uniform-quantised protocols. It is shown that practical consensus among agents is guaranteed and occurrence of Zeno behaviour is prevented under the designed event-triggering mechanisms. Second, under the proposed protocols using logarithmic quantised information, both synchronous and asynchronous event-triggered control algorithms are given to solve the practical consensus problem. Meanwhile, Zeno behaviour of the closed-loop systems can be excluded under the proposed event-triggered algorithms. Finally, numerical simulations are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the derived results.     

切换非线性系统的输出反馈周期事件触发控制

本文针对一类在任意切换信号作用下的切换非线性系统, 研究了其输出反馈周期事件触发控制问题. 所考 虑的非线性系统采用非严格反馈形式且含有未知时变控制系数. 在本文中, 仅利用采样时刻的系统输出. 为了估计 系统的不可量测的状态, 基于采样的系统输出构造了降维状态观测器. 为了减少通信资源的利用, 提出了一种新的 输出反馈周期事件触发策略, 该策略包含仅利用事件触发时刻的信息构造的输出反馈事件触发控制器以及仅在采 样时刻间歇性监测的离散事件触发机制. 通过选取可容许的采样周期及合适的公共Lyapunov函数, 证明了闭环系统 在任意切换下全局渐近稳定. 最后, 通过将本文中所给出的控制方案应用到数值算例中验证了其有效性.     

Event-triggered adaptive consensus control of nonlinear multi-agent systems with unknown control directions and actuator saturation

This article addresses the event-triggered adaptive consensus control of nonlinear multi-agent systems with unknown control direction and actuator saturation. A new robust adaptive control algorithm based on an event-triggered mechanism is designed. The smooth Lipschitz function approximates the saturated nonlinear function, while the Nussbaum function handles unknown control directions and residual terms. The event-triggered mechanism is designed to determine the time of communication, significantly reducing the communication burden. An additional estimator is utilized to deal with unknown parameters involved in neighbor dynamics and prevent information exchange to consistency errors between connected subsystems. The results show that all the signals of the closed-loop system are uniformly bounded, and the consensus tracking error converges to a bounded set. Meanwhile, Zeno's behavior is eliminated. Simulation results confirm the superiority of the proposed method.     

Event-triggered nonlinear consensus in directed multi-agent systems with combinational state measurements

Event-triggered sampling control is motivated by the applications of embedded microprocessors equipped in the agents with limited computation and storage resources. This paper studied global consensus in multi-agent systems with inherent nonlinear dynamics on general directed networks using decentralised event-triggered strategy. For each agent, the controller updates are event-based and only triggered at its own event times by only utilising the locally current sampling data. A high-performance sampling event that only needs local neighbours’ states at their own discrete time instants is presented. Furthermore, we introduce two kinds of general algebraic connectivity for strongly connected networks and strongly connected components of the directed network containing a spanning tree so as to describe the system's ability for reaching consensus. A detailed theoretical analysis on consensus is performed and two criteria are derived by virtue of algebraic graph theory, matrix theory and Lyapunov control approach. It is shown that the Zeno behaviour of triggering time sequence is excluded during the system's whole working process. A numerical simulation is given to show the effectiveness of the theoretical results.     

Distributed event-triggered control of multi-agent systems with combinational measurements

This paper studies the distributed rendezvous problem of multi-agent systems with novel event-triggered controllers. We have proposed a combinational measurement approach to event design and developed the basic event-triggered control algorithm. As a result, control of agents is only triggered at their own event time, which reduces the amount of communication and lowers the frequency of controller updates in practice. Furthermore, based on the convergence analysis of the basic algorithm, we have proposed a new iterative event-triggered algorithm where continuous measurement of the neighbor states is avoided. It is noted that the amount of communication among agents has been significantly reduced without obvious negative effects on the control performances. The effectiveness of the proposed strategies is illustrated by numerical examples in 3D spaces.     

基于事件触发的离散多智能体二分一致性

针对一阶离散多智能体系统,研究了事件触发控制下的二分一致性问题.首先考虑智能体间通信拓扑结构为无向连通结构平衡图的情形,针对各智能体设计事件触发控制,包括仅依赖于自身及邻居智能体采样状态的控制输入,以及仅依赖自身状态的事件触发条件,实现了对通信资源的节约利用.基于图论、离散系统稳定性理论,证明系统能够实现二分一致性.同时,合理设置控制输入及事件触发条件中参数,保证系统不存在Zeno现象.之后,进一步分析设计了包含有向生成树的结构平衡图下,多智能体系统的事件触发控制.最后利用仿真实例验证了理论结果的有效性.