Cooperative robust output regulation of a class of heterogeneous linear uncertain multi‐agent systems

The cooperative output regulation of a linear multi‐agent system can be viewed as a generalization of the leader‐following consensus problem and was studied recently for the case where the system uncertain parameters vary in a sufficiently small neighborhood of their nominal value. This case was handled by the internal model design which converts the problem into a simultaneous eigenvalue placement problem of an augmented multi‐agent system. In this paper, we further consider the cooperative robust output regulation problem for a class of minimum phase linear multi‐agent systems in the sense that the controller allows the system uncertain parameters to vary in an arbitrarily prescribed compact subset. For this purpose, we introduce a new type of internal model that allows the cooperative robust output regulation problem of the given plant to be converted into a robust stabilization problem of an augmented multi‐agent system. We then solve our problem by combining a simultaneous high‐gain state feedback control technique and a distributed high‐gain observer technique. A special case of our result leads to the solution of the leader‐following robust consensus problem for a class of uncertain multi‐agent systems. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.