Robust node‐to‐node consensus of linear multiagent systems with directed switching topologies subject to uncertain pinning communications

This paper is focused on the node‐to‐node consensus problem of multiagent systems consisting of general linear node dynamics under directed switching topologies. Specifically, it is assumed that the multiagent systems under consideration have 2 layers, ie, leader layer and follower layer. When uncertainties on the pinning links between the 2 layers exist, the coordination goal is to present some robust control laws, which are distributed such that the states of each follower asymptotically converge to those of its corresponding leader. By using tools from M‐matrix theory and multiple Lyapunov methods, some sufficient criteria are derived to achieve this goal. Finally, 2 simulation examples are performed to validate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.     

Distributed Consensus of Multi‐Agent Networks Via Event‐Triggered Pinning Control

This paper is concerned with distributed consensus between two multi‐agent networks with the same topology structure. Considering one network as the leaders' network and the other one as the followers' network, a new event‐triggered pinning control scheme is proposed to realize distributed consensus between these two networks. By utilizing the graph theory and Lyapunov functional method, consensus criteria are derived in the form of linear matrix inequalities. Moreover, distributed consensus of multi‐agent networks with Lipschitz nonlinear dynamics is also discussed. Numerical simulations are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical analysis.     

Consensus problem of high‐order multi‐agent systems with external disturbances: An H∞ analysis approach

This paper is devoted to the output consensus problem of directed networks of multiple high‐order agents with external disturbances, and proposes a distributed protocol using the neighbors' measured outputs. By defining an appropriate controlled output and conducting a model transformation in two steps, consensus performance analysis of the multi‐agent system under the proposed protocol is transformed into a normal H_∞ problem. Then using H_∞ theory of linear systems, conditions are derived to ensure the consensus performance with a prescribed H_∞ index for networks with fixed and switching topologies, respectively. A numerical example of the formation control application is included to validate the theoretical results. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distributed node‐to‐node consensus of multi‐agent systems with stochastic sampling

This paper is concerned with the mean square node‐to‐node consensus tracking problem for multi‐agent systems with nonidentical nonlinear dynamics and directed topologies. The randomly occurred uncertainties in the sampling devices may result in stochastically varied sampling periods, which lead to the investigation of node‐to‐node consensus problem under stochastic sampling. By employing the input‐delay method and discontinuous Lyapunov functional approach, it arrives at some sufficient conditions under which the state of each follower can track that of the corresponding leader asymptotically in the mean square sense. Finally, some numerical simulations are provided to verify the effectiveness of the theoretical results. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Consensus of second‐order multi‐agent systems with exogenous disturbances

In this paper, the consensus of second‐order multi‐agent dynamical systems with exogenous disturbances is studied. A pinning control strategy is designed for a part of agents of the multi‐agent systems without disturbances, and this pinning control can bring multiple agents' states to reaching an expected consensus track. Under the influence of the disturbances, disturbance observers‐based control (DOBC) is developed for disturbances generated by an exogenous system to estimate the disturbances. Asymptotical consensus of the multi‐agent systems with disturbances under the composite controller can be achieved for fixed and switching topologies. Finally, by applying an example of multi‐agent systems with switching topologies and exogenous disturbances, the consensus of multi‐agent systems is reached under the DOBC with the designed parameters. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Leader‐Following Consensus of Multi‐Agent System with Diffusion

This paper is concerned with the leader‐following consensus problem for multi‐agent systems consisting of one stationary leader and multiple cooperative followers, where the controlling effect of each follower depends on its own state. It is noted that the influence of diffusion among followers is taken into account and the system is modeled by reaction‐diffusion equations. With the assumption of the followers' initial states, a linear control protocol is designed. Based on algebraic graph theory, the method of energy estimates, and Sobolev embedding theorem, the sufficient conditions guaranteeing the leader‐following consensus under the proposed control protocol are provided. Numerical examples illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.     

Finite‐time consensus of Euler‐Lagrange agents without velocity measurements via energy shaping

Motivated by the energy‐shaping framework and the properties of homogeneous systems, this paper deals with the problem of achieving consensus of multiple Euler‐Lagrange (EL) systems using the energy shaping plus damping injection principles of passivity‐based control. We propose a method to derive a novel family of decentralized controllers that is capable of solving the leaderless and the leader‐follower consensus problems in finite‐time in networks of fully actuated EL systems without employing velocity measurements. As in the energy‐shaping methodology, the controller is another EL system and the plant‐controller interconnection is the gradient of a suitable defined potential function. The potential energy and dissipation functions, of the controller, are provided with some homogeneous properties in order to achieve finite‐time convergence. This paper provides several simulations that corroborate the performance of different controllers.     

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.     

Stochastic consensus of single‐integrator multi‐agent systems under relative state‐dependent measurement noises and time delays

This paper proposes a consensus algorithm for continuous‐time single‐integrator multi‐agent systems with relative state‐dependent measurement noises and time delays in directed fixed and switching topologies. Each agent's control input relies on its own information state and its neighbors' information states, which are delayed and corrupted by measurement noises whose intensities are considered a function of the agents' relative states. The time delays are considered time‐varying and uniform. For directed fixed topologies, condition to ensure mean square linear χ‐consensus (average consensus, respectively) are derived for digraphs having spanning tree (balanced digraphs having spanning tree, respectively). For directed switching topologies, conditions on both time delays and dwell time have been given to extend the mean square linear χ‐consensus (average consensus, respectively) of fixed topologies to switching topologies. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Local design of distributed H∞‐consensus filtering over sensor networks under multiplicative noises and deception attacks

This paper is concerned with the local design of the distributed H_∞‐consensus filtering problem for a class of discrete time‐varying systems subject to both multiplicative noises and deception attacks over sensor networks. The target plant and the measuring sensors are disturbed by multiplicative noises with known statistics. The malicious signal involved in deception attacks is constrained by a specific sector‐like bounded condition, which reflects certain tolerable bound on the difference between the attack signal and the true signal. Attention is paid to the design of filter gains for guaranteeing a desirable filtering performance that simultaneously characterizes the filtering accuracy and the consensus requirement. To handle the proposed filtering problem, the supply rate function is firstly chosen for each node and then the dissipation matrix is constructed as a column substochastic matrix based on the stochastic vector dissipation theory. Subsequently, sufficient conditions by means of recursive linear matrix inequalities are presented for each node such that the filtering error and the consensus error satisfy the desirable H_∞‐consensus performance index over a finite horizon. Finally, an illustrative simulation is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed filter strategy.     

Data‐driven optimal event‐triggered consensus control for unknown nonlinear multiagent systems with control constraints

This paper considers optimal consensus control problem for unknown nonlinear multiagent systems (MASs) subjected to control constraints by utilizing event‐triggered adaptive dynamic programming (ETADP) technique. To deal with the control constraints, we introduce nonquadratic energy consumption functions into performance indices and formulate the Hamilton‐Jacobi‐Bellman (HJB) equations. Then, based on the Bellman's optimality principle, constrained optimal consensus control policies are designed from the HJB equations. In order to implement the ETADP algorithm, the critic networks and action networks are developed to approximate the value functions and consensus control policies respectively based on the measurable system data. Under the event‐triggered control framework, the weights of the critic networks and action networks are only updated at the triggering instants which are decided by the designed adaptive triggered conditions. The Lyapunov method is used to prove that the local neighbor consensus errors and the weight estimation errors of the critic networks and action networks are ultimately bounded. Finally, a numerical example is provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed ETADP method.     

Event‐Based Consensus Controller for Linear Multi‐Agent Systems Over Directed Communication Topologies: A Co‐Design Approach

The paper addresses the distributed event‐triggered consensus problem in directed topologies for multi‐agent systems (MAS) with general linear dynamic agents. A co‐design approach is proposed to determine parameters of the consensus controller and its event‐triggered mechanism (ETM), simultaneously. This approach guarantees asymptotic stability along with decreasing data transmission among agents. In the proposed event‐based consensus controller, each agent broadcasts data to the neighbors only at its own triggering instants; this differs from previous studies in which continuous data streams among agents were required. Furthermore, the proposed control law is based on the piecewise constant functions of the measurement values, which are updated at triggering instants. In this case the control scheme decreases the communication network usage, energy consumption, and wear of the actuator. As a result, it facilitates distributed implementation of the proposed consensus controller for real‐world applications. A theorem is proved to outline sufficient conditions to guarantee the asymptotic stability of the closed‐loop system with the event‐based consensus controller. Another theorem is also proved to show the Zeno behavior exclusion. As a case study, the proposed event‐based controller is applied for a diving consensus problem to illustrate the effectiveness of the method.     

Observer‐based finite‐time output‐feedback controller for DC‐DC buck converters with unknown load variations

The output voltage regulation problem of a DC‐DC buck converter is investigated in this paper via an observer‐based finite‐time output‐feedback control approach. Considering the effects of unknown load variations and the case without current sensor, by using the technique of adding a power integrator and the idea of nonseparation principle, a finite‐time voltage regulation control algorithm via dynamic output feedback is designed. The main feature of the designed observer and controller does not need any load's information. Theoretically, it is proven that the output voltage can reach the desired voltage in a finite time under the proposed controller. The effectiveness of the proposed control method is illustrated by numerical simulations and experimental results.     

Distributed event‐triggered feedback consensus control with state‐dependent threshold for general linear multi‐agent systems

This paper considers the distributed event‐triggered consensus problem for multi‐agent systems with general linear dynamics under undirected graphs. Based on state feedback, we propose a novel distributed event‐triggered consensus controller with state‐dependent threshold for each agent to achieve consensus, without continuous communication in either controller update or triggering condition monitoring. Each agent only needs to monitor its own state continuously to determine if the event is triggered. It is proved that there is no Zeno behavior under the proposed consensus control algorithm. To relax the requirement of the state measurement of each agent, we further propose a novel distributed observer‐based event‐triggered consensus controller to solve the consensus problem in the case with output feedback and prove that there is no Zeno behavior exhibited. Finally, simulation results are given to illustrate the theoretical results. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Leader‐following consensus of multiple uncertain Euler‐Lagrange systems

A new adaptive distributed controller is developed for the leader‐following consensus problem of multiple uncertain Euler‐Lagrange systems. A distinct feature of our proposed approach as opposed to the existing ones is that it does not need the exchange of controller's state among the communication network. As a consequence, it not only makes the implementation of the controller much easier but also reduces the communication cost. The effectiveness of the main result is demonstrated by some exemplary applications to cooperative control of multiple two‐link robot arms.     

Quad‐Rotor Modeling and Attitude Control Using State‐Dependent ARX Type Model

A state‐dependent autoregressive with exogenous variables (SD‐ARX) model whose functional coefficients are approximated by sets of radial basis function (RBF) networks is proposed to describe the dynamic behavior of a quad‐rotor in this paper. This model is identified offline and used as an internal predictor of a receding horizon predictive controller to address the quad‐rotor's attitude control issue. In addition, the physical constraints of the system have been also taken into account during the controller design process. The results of real‐time control on a quad‐rotor aircraft illustrate satisfactory modeling accuracy in a large operating range and good performance of control approach proposed in this paper.     

A novel consensus algorithm for second‐order multi‐agent systems without velocity measurements

In this paper, a novel consensus protocol for second‐order multi‐agent systems is elegantly designed, and it relaxes the common requirement of the velocity information of the agents. An interesting consensus criterion is explicitly derived in terms of the proposed cooperation law provided that the dynamical equation for each agent is linear. As an extension, the proposed cooperation rule is further extended to a general scenario, where the coupling weights characterizing the relationships among the neighboring agents are time‐varying. Accordingly, two distributed cooperative algorithms (node/edge‐based scheme) are explicitly designed. Moreover, we study the case of network with switching communication setting. It shows that edge‐based law is capable with the time‐varying topology, while the node‐based scheme is not. In addition, the proposed coordination strategies are applied to the tracking problem as well. Finally, these obtained consensus results are well supported in the light of the pendulum models. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exponential Consensus for Nonlinear Multi‐Agent Systems with Communication and Input Delays via Hybrid Control

This paper aims to investigate the exponential leader‐following consensus for nonlinear multi‐agent systems with time‐varying communication and input delays by using hybrid control. Based on the Lyapunov functional method, impulsive differential equation theory and matrix analysis, we show that all the followers can achieve leader‐following consensus with the virtual leader exponentially even if only a fraction of followers can obtain the leader's information. Two classes of exponential consensus criteria as well as the convergence rates for the controlled multi‐agent systems are presented under very relaxed interaction topology conditions, i.e., the directed interaction topology among the followers is only required to have p(p>1) disjoint strong components. Finally, two numerical examples are given to validate the proposed theoretical results.     

Distributed reliable H∞ consensus control for a class of multi‐agent systems under switching networks: A topology‐based average dwell time approach

This paper investigates the problem of distributed reliable H_∞ consensus control for high‐order networked agent systems with actuator faults and switching undirected topologies. The Lipschitz nonlinearities, several types of actuator faults, and exogenous disturbances are considered in subsystems. Suppose the communication network of the multi‐agent systems may switch among finite connected graphs. By utilizing the relative state information of neighbors, a new distributed adaptive reliable consensus protocol is presented for actuator failure compensations in individual nodes. Note that the Lyapunov function for error systems may not decrease as the communication network is time‐varying; as a result, the existing distributed adaptive control technique cannot be applied directly. To overcome this difficulty, the topology‐based average dwell time approach is introduced to deal with switching jumps. By applying topology‐based average dwell time approach and Lyapunov theory, the distributed controller design condition is given in terms of LMIs. It is shown that the proposed scheme can guarantee that the reliable H_∞ consensus problem is solvable in the presence actuator faults and external disturbance. Finally, two numerical examples are given the effectiveness of the proposed theoretical results. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robust event‐triggered control of second‐order disturbed leader‐follower MASs: A nonsingular finite‐time consensus approach

This paper addresses the finite‐time and the prescribed finite‐time event‐triggered consensus tracking problems for second‐order multi‐agent systems (MASs) with uncertain disturbances. The prescribed finite‐time event‐triggered consensus of the second‐order disturbed MASs was obtained for the first time and the controller is nonsingular. Furthermore, a new self‐triggered control scheme is presented for the finite‐time consensus tracking, and the continuous communication can be avoided in the triggering condition monitoring. Hence, the finite‐time consensus tracking can be achieved with intermittent communication. Moreover, Zeno behavior is excluded for each follower. The efficiency of the proposed algorithms is verified by numerical simulations.