Prescribed-time containment control of high-order nonlinear multi-agent systems based on distributed observer

This paper investigates the prescribed-time containment control problem for multi-agent systems with high-order nonlinear dynamics under a directed communication topology. Firstly, in view of the fact that only some follower agents can directly access the state information of multiple leader agents, a prescribed-time distributed observer is put forward to estimate the convex hull spanned by these leaders. Then, with the help of the distributed observer, a novel containment control method is developed for each follower based on a time-varying scaling function, so that all followers can converge to the convex hull spanned by the states of multiple leaders within a prescribed time. The comparison with the finite-time and fixed-time control methods differs in that the convergence time of the method proposed in this paper is independent of the initial conditions and control parameters and can be arbitrarily preassigned according to actual needs. Finally, an example is given to demonstrate the usefulness of the prescribed-time containment control method.     

Global adaptive fuzzy consensus control of nonlinear multi-agent systems via distributed event-triggered communication

This paper investigates globally bounded consensus of leader-following multi-agent systems with unknown nonlinear dynamics and external disturbance via adaptive event-triggered fuzzy control. Different from existing works where filtering and backstepping techniques are applied to design controllers and event-triggered conditions, a matrix inequality is established to obtain the feedback gain matrix and event-triggered functions. To save communication resources, a new distributed event-triggered controller with fully discontinuous communication among following agents is designed. Meanwhile, a strictly positive minimum of inter-event time is provided to exclude Zeno behavior. Furthermore, to achieve globally bounded leader-following consensus, an adaptive fuzzy approximator and a parameter estimator are designed to approximate the unknown nonlinear dynamics and parameters, respectively. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is validated via a simulation example.     

Model-Free distributed optimal consensus control of nonlinear multi-agent systems: A graphical game approach

In this paper, the optimal consensus control problem of nonlinear multi-agent systems(MASs) with completely unknown dynamics is considered. The problem is formulated in a differential graphical game approach which can be solved by Hamilton-Jacobi (HJ) equations. The main difficulty in solving the HJ equations lies in the nonlinear coupling between equations. Based on the Adaptive Dynamic Programming (ADP) technique, an VI-PI mixed HDP algorithm is proposed to solve the HJ equations distributedly. With the PI step, a suitable iterative initial value can be obtained according to the initial policies. Then, VI steps are run to get the optimal solution with exponential convergence rate. Neural networks (NNs) are applied to approximate the value functions, which makes the data-driven end-to-end learning possible. A numerical simulation is conducted to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.     

Event-triggered containment control of second-order nonlinear multi-agent systems

This paper investigates the event-triggered containment control for a class of second-order nonlinear multi-agent systems. A centralized event-triggered protocol is first designed, then the result is extended to the decentralized counterpart. By the tools from nonsmooth analysis, it is shown that the containment control objective can be achieved via the presented protocols. To avoid the Zeno behavior, the event-triggered conditions are redesigned. It is proven that all followers can asymptotically converge to the convex hull spanned by multiple leaders via the proposed strategies and the Zeno behavior can be excluded, simultaneously. Two examples are given to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed protocols.     

Finite-time consensus control for a class of multi-agent systems with dead-zone input

This paper investigates a finite-time consensus issue for non-affine pure-feedback multi-agent systems with dead-zone input. Compared with the existing results on multi-agent systems, finite-time consensus problem of non-affine multi-agent systems is proposed for the first time. Based on the backsteppting technique, adaptive finite-time consensus control scheme is presented. With the help of this strategy, adaptive virtual variables, adaptive laws and the actual controller are designed to guarantee that the consensus errors converge to a small scale of the origin in finite time. Finally, a practical example is applied to verify the feasibility of the proposed method.     

Finite-time consensus for nonlinear multi-agent systems with time-varying delay: An auxiliary system approach

This paper investigates the finite-time consensus problem of uncertain nonlinear multi-agent systems with asymmetric time-varying delays and directed communication topology. An auxiliary system is firstly designed to deal with the continuous or discontinuous time-varying communication delays. Based on the finite-time input-to-output framework, a novel consensus scheme relying on local delayed information exchange is proposed. Moreover, by utilizing an auxiliary integrated regressor matrix and vector method, the system uncertainties can be accurately estimated. Then the consensus of multi-agent systems can be achieved within finite time by selecting the control gains simply. Finally, numerical simulations are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithms.     

Finite-time consensus of linear multi-agent system via distributed event-triggered strategy

In this paper, we mainly investigate the finite-time consensus problem of general linear multi-agent systems. The paper proposed a suitable event-triggered control strategy. The strategy has some desirable properties including: distributed, independent, and asynchronous. It is theoretical demonstrated that the multi-agent system can achieve consensus in a certain time regardless of the initial condition under this event-triggered control scheme. In addition, without finding singular triggering problem, we prove the feasibility of this proposed event-triggered control protocol. Finally, we put forward some simulation graphs for the sake of showing the availability of our conclusions.     

New distributed adaptive protocols for uncertain nonlinear leader-follower multi-agent systems via a repetitive learning control approach

In this paper, the distributed consensus problem of leader-follower multi-agent systems with unknown time-varying coupling gains and parameter uncertainties are investigated, and the fully distributed protocols with the adaptive updating laws of periodic time-varying parameters are designed by using a repetitive learning control approach. By virtue of algebraic graph theory, Barbalat’s lemma and an appropriate Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, it is shown that each follower agent can asymptotically track the leader even though the dynamic of the leader is unknown to any of them, i.e., the global asymptotic consensus can be achieved. At last, a simulation example is given to illustrate the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed protocols.     

Finite-time and fixed-time bipartite consensus of multi-agent systems under a unified discontinuous control protocol

This paper investigates the issue of finite/fixed-time bipartite consensus (FFTBC) of multi-agent systems with signed graphs. A new unified framework of finite-time and fixed-time bipartite consensus is built via some discontinuous control protocols based on the theory of differential inclusion and set-valued Lie derivative. Under the structurally balanced or unbalanced signed graphs, the goal of FFTBC is reached by a common discontinuous controller with different control gains, which fills the gap in studying FFTBC issues with discontinuous protocols. Some numerical examples with comparisons are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of our designs.     

Finite-time scaled consensus tracking of a class of high-order nonlinear multi-agent systems with unstable linearization

In this paper, we consider the finite-time scaled consensus tracking of a class of high-order nonlinear multiagent systems(MASs)who owns unstable modes in its Jacobian linearized system. The presence of unstable linearization makes the high-order MASs in question essentially different from those in the existing works. Under a directed interaction topology, to overcome the difficulties caused by the asymmetry property of Laplacian matrix, the finite-time scaled consensus control scheme is developed by the modified addition of a power integrator method. Based on finite-time Lyapunov stability theorem and algebra graph theory, for high-order MASs with unstable linearization even in the presence of non-lipschitz nonlinear dynamic, all system states are bounded and the output tracking errors are finite-time uniformly ultimately bounded(FUUB). Finally, a numerical example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.     

Behavior learning based distributed tracking control for human-in-the-loop multi-agent systems

In this study, the distributed tracking problem for human-in-the-loop multi-agent systems (HiTL MASs) has been investigated. First, we construct an HiTL MAS model with a non-autonomous leader which can receive the control signal from a human operator and generate the desired trajectory. The human control signal is assumed to be generated by a leader’s state feedback control law with an unknown gain matrix that represents the control behavior of the human operator. Then, we propose a fully distributed adaptive control method that enables all followers to simultaneously track the human-controlled leader and online learn the unknown human operator’s feedback gain matrix. Furthermore, the parameter estimation error is also discussed, and all followers will learn the true value of the human operator’s feedback gain matrix when the state of the leader satisfies the persistent excitation (PE) condition. Moreover, a novel distributed adaptive control law is developed for each follower to remove the PE condition by utilizing the concurrent learning (CL) technique. Finally, simulated examples demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed methodologies are presented.     

Finite-time formation control of nonaffine nonlinear systems under directed communication interactions

This paper studies the problem of finite-time formation tracking control for networked nonaffine nonlinear systems with unmeasured dynamics and unknown uncertainties/disturbances under directed topology. A unified distributed control framework is proposed by integrating adaptive backstepping control, dynamic gain control and dynamic surface control based on finite-time theory and consensus theory. Auxiliary dynamics are designed to construct control gains with non-Lipschitz dynamics so as to guarantee finite-time convergence of formation errors. Adaptive control is used to compensate for uncertain control efforts of the transformed systems derived from original nonaffine systems. It is shown that formation tracking is achieved during a finite-time period via the proposed controller, where fractional power terms are only associated with auxiliary dynamics instead of interacted information among the networked nonlinear systems in comparison with most existing finite-time cooperative controllers. Moreover, the continuity of the proposed controller is guaranteed by setting the exponents of fractional powers to an appropriate interval. It is also shown that the improved dynamic surface control method could guarantee finite-time convergence of formation errors, which could not be accomplished by conventional dynamic surface control. Finally, simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.     

Robust distributed tracking control for linear multi-agent systems based on distributed intermediate estimator

This paper considers the distributed tracking control problem for linear multi-agent systems with disturbances and a leader whose control input is nonzero and not available to any follower. Based on the relative output measurements of neighboring agents, a novel distributed observer-based tracking protocol is proposed, where the distributed intermediate estimators are constructed to estimate the leader’s unknown control input and the states of the tracking error system simultaneously, then a distributed tracking protocol is designed based on the derived estimates. It is proved that the states of the tracking error system are uniformly ultimately bounded and an explicit tracking error bound is obtained. A simulation example of aircrafts verifies the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Finite-time stabilization of nonlinear systems via impulsive control with state-dependent delay

This paper focuses on the issue of finite-time stability for a general form of nonlinear systems subject to state-dependent delayed impulsive controller. Based on the Lyapunov theory and the impulsive control theory, sufficient conditions for finite-time stability (FTS) and finite-time contractive stability (FTCS) are obtained. Additionally, we apply theoretical results to finite-time synchronization of chaotic systems and design the effective state-dependent delayed impulsive controllers in terms of techniques of linear matrix inequality (LMI). Finally, we present two numerical examples of finite-time synchronization of cellular neural networks and Chua’s circuit to verify the effectiveness of our results.     

Finite-time stabilization of nonlinear dynamical systems via control vector Lyapunov functions

Finite-time stability involves dynamical systems whose trajectories converge to an equilibrium state in finite time. Since finite-time convergence implies nonuniqueness of system solutions in reverse time, such systems possess non-Lipschitzian dynamics. Sufficient conditions for finite-time stability have been developed in the literature using Hölder continuous Lyapunov functions. In this paper, we develop a general framework for finite-time stability analysis based on vector Lyapunov functions. Specifically, we construct a vector comparison system whose solution is finite-time stable and relate this finite-time stability property to the stability properties of a nonlinear dynamical system using a vector comparison principle. Furthermore, we design a universal decentralized finite-time stabilizer for large-scale dynamical systems that is robust against full modeling uncertainty. Finally, we present two numerical examples for finite-time stabilization involving a large-scale dynamical system and a combustion control system.     

Finite-time state-feedback control for a class of stochastic constrained nonlinear systems

In this article, the finite-time stability problem is investigated for a kind of stochastic nonlinear systems subject to asymmetric output constraints. Firstly, a new asymmetric barrier Lyapunov function (BLF) is introduced to deal with the constraint on output variable. Further, through incorporating the proposed BLF into the adding a power integrator technique, a state-feedback controller is explicitly designed. With the help of the stochastic Lyapunov stability theory, it is then proved that the origins of the considered systems are finite-time stable in probability under the designed controller. Meanwhile, the proposed control scheme also guarantees that the pre-given output constraint is not violated in the almost sure sense. Finally, the simulation results of an example are provided to demonstrate the derived theoretical conclusion.     

Adaptive fault-tolerant shape control for nonlinear Lipschitz stochastic distribution systems

This paper addresses the problem of adaptive fault estimation and fault-tolerant control for a class of nonlinear non-Gaussian stochastic systems subject to time-varying loss of control effectiveness faults. In this work, time-varying faults, Lipschitz nonlinear property and general stochastic characteristics are taken into consideration in a unified framework. Instead of using the system output signal, the output distribution is adopted for shape control. Both the states and faults are simultaneously estimated by an adaptive observer. Then, a fault tolerant shape controller is designed to compensate for the faults and realize stochastic output distribution tracking. Both the fault estimation and the fault tolerant control schemes are designed based on linear matrix inequality (LMI) technique. Satisfactory performance has been obtained for a numerical simulation example. Furthermore the proposed scheme is successfully tested in a case study of particle size distribution control for an emulsion polymerization reactor.     

Consensus disturbance rejection for Lipschitz nonlinear multi-agent systems with input delay: A DOBC approach

In this paper, a new predictor-based consensus disturbance rejection method is proposed for high-order multi-agent systems with Lipschitz nonlinearity and input delay. First, a distributed disturbance observer for consensus control is developed for each agent to estimate the disturbance under the delay constraint. Based on the conventional predictor feedback approach, a non-ideal predictor based control scheme is constructed for each agent by utilizing the estimate of the disturbance and the prediction of the relative state information. Then, rigorous analysis is carried out to ensure that the extra terms associated with disturbances and nonlinear functions are properly considered. Sufficient conditions for the consensus of the multi-agent systems with disturbance rejection are derived based on the analysis in the framework of Lyapunov–Krasovskii functionals. A simulation example is included to demonstrate the performance of the proposed control scheme.     

Event-triggered secure control of nonlinear multi-agent systems under sensor attacks

In this paper, a security consistent tracking control scheme with event-triggered strategy and sensor attacks is developed for a class of nonlinear multi-agent systems. For the sensor attacks on the system, a security measurement preselector and a state observer are introduced to combat the impact of the attacks and achieve secure state estimation. In addition, command filtering technology is introduced to overcome the “complexity explosion” caused by the use of the backstepping approach. Subsequently, a new dynamic event-triggered strategy is proposed, in which the triggering conditions are no longer constants but can be adjusted in real time according to the adaptive variables, so that the designed event-triggered mechanism has stronger online update ability. The measurement states are only transmitted through the network based on event-triggered conditions. The proposed adaptive backstepping algorithm not only ensures the security of the system under sensor attacks but also saves network resources and ensures the consistent tracking performance of multi-agent systems. The boundedness of all closed-loop signals is proved by Lyapunov stability analysis. Simulation examples show the effectiveness of the control scheme.     

A robust distributed observer design for Lipschitz nonlinear systems with time-varying switching topology

This paper deals with state estimation for a class of Lipschitz nonlinear systems under a time-varying disconnected communication network. A distributed observer consists of some local observers that are connected to each other through a communication network. We consider a situation where a communication network does not remain connected all the time, and the network may be caused by intermittent communication link failure. Moreover, each local observer has access to a local measurement, which may be insufficient to ensure the system’s observability, but the collection of all measurements in the network ensures observability. In this condition, the purpose is to design a distributed observer where the estimated state vectors of all local observers converge to the state vector of the system asymptotically, while local observers exchange estimated state vectors through a communication network and use their local measurements. According to theoretical analysis, a nonlinear and a robust nonlinear distributed observer exist when in addition to the union of all communication topologies being strongly connected during a time interval, the component of each communication graph is also strongly connected during each subinterval. The existence conditions of the distributed observers are derived in terms of a set of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Finally, the effectiveness of the presented method is numerically verified using some simulation examples.