Event-triggered tracking control for couple-group multi-agent systems

This paper mainly investigates the event-triggered tracking control for couple-group multi-agent systems in a disturbance environment, where the topology of the agents is switching. Consensus protocol is designed for the case that some agents reach a consistent value, while the other agents reach another consistent value. Then, event-triggered control laws are designed to reduce the frequency of individual actuation updating for discrete-time agent dynamics. Moreover, by applying the Lyapunov function method, a sufficient condition of couple-group consensus is established in terms of a matrix inequality when the communication topology is switching. Finally, simulation examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.     

Event-triggered consensus of nonlinear multi-agent systems with stochastic switching topology

This paper is concerned with a leader-follower consensus problem for networked Lipschitz nonlinear multi-agent systems. An event-triggered consensus controller is developed with the consideration of discontinuous state feedback. To further enhance the robustness of the proposed controller, modeling uncertainty and switching topology are also considered in the stability analysis. Meanwhile, a time-delay equivalent approach is adopted to deal with the discrete-time control problem. Particularly, a sufficient condition for the stochastic stabilization of the networked multi-agent systems is proposed based on the Lyapunov functional method. Furthermore, an optimization algorithm is developed to derive the parameters of the controller. Finally, numerical simulation is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm.     

Event-triggered and quantized self-triggered control for multi-agent systems based on relative state measurements

This paper studies the consensus problem of multi-agent systems by event- and self-triggered control. An event-triggered algorithm with periodic event detection and relative state measurements is designed to determine all event times. Furthermore, a self-triggered control algorithm with periodic event detection and quantization is proposed to further reduce resource consumption. In the proposed control strategies, only relative state information, or called edge information, is utilized by controllers, and all edge state information incident to each agent is processed together. The results are illustrated by two numerical experiments.     

Distributed rotating formation control of second-order leader-following multi-agent systems with nonuniform delays

In this paper, the leader-following rotating formation control problem is investigated for second-order multi-agent systems with nonuniform time-delays. We propose a distributed algorithm to drive all agents to achieve a desired formation and orbit around a common point. By a frequency domain analysis method, the upper bound of the maximum time-delay is obtained. Finally, a numerical simulation is given to illustrate the obtained results.     

Quantized consensus in second-order multi-agent systems via event-trigger control with sampled data

This paper addresses the quantized consensus problem of second-order multi-agent systems (MASs) where the topology has a directed spanning tree. An event-trigger control protocol (ETCP) is proposed by designing a combined threshold. The combined threshold not only reduces more event triggers than the state-dependent threshold, but also is more practical than the time-dependent threshold. For further reducing computation resources and transmission cost, the sampled data, self-trigger scheme and data quantization are employed together. Under the proposed ETCP, the sufficient condition is derived to guarantee the quantized consensus of second-order MASs. Finally, the comparison experiments are conducted to demonstrate the superiority of ETCP based on the combined threshold.     

Event-triggered adaptive fault-tolerant control for nonlinear systems fusing static and dynamic information

In this paper, a novel event-triggered adaptive fault-tolerant control scheme is proposed for a class of nonlinear systems with unknown actuator faults. Multiplicative faults and additive faults are taken into account simultaneously, both of which may vary with time. Different from existing results, our controller fuses static reliability information and dynamic online information, which is helpful to enhance the fault-tolerant capability. With the aid of an event-triggering mechanism, an actuator switching strategy and a bound estimation approach, the communication burden is significantly reduced and the impacts of the actuator faults as well as the network-induced error are effectively compensated for. Moreover, by employing the prescribed performance control technique, the system tracking error can converge to a predefined arbitrarily small residual set with prescribed convergence rate and maximum overshoot, which implies that the proposed scheme is able to ensure rapid and accurate tracking. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.     

Event-triggered group consensus for multi-agent systems subject to input saturation

This paper investigates group consensus for leaderless multi-agent systems with non-identical dynamics. The consensus protocol is put forward in the form of the distributed event-triggered control subject to saturation, which depends on information from neighboring agents at event-triggered instants. In order to exclude the Zeno behavior and save resources, the given event-triggered condition is detected only at discrete sampling times, where the sampling intervals can be variable. Based on the graph theory, Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional method and by adopting the free-weighting matrix technique, some sufficient group consensus criteria in terms of linear matrix inequalities are derived. Furthermore, optimization problems aiming at maximizing the event-triggered parameter and the consensus region are proposed. Finally, numerical simulations illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.     

Event-triggered fault estimation and sliding mode fault-tolerant control for a class of nonlinear networked control systems

This paper is concerned with integrated event-triggered fault estimation (FE) and sliding mode fault-tolerant control (FTC) for a class of discrete-time Lipschtiz nonlinear networked control systems (NCSs) subject to actuator fault and disturbance. First, an event-triggered fault/state observer is designed to estimate the system state and actuator fault simultaneously. And then, a discrete-time sliding surface is constructed in state-estimation space. By the use of a reformulated Lipschitz property and delay system analysis method, the sliding mode dynamics and state/fault error dynamics are converted into a unified linear parameter varying (LPV) networked system model by taking into account the event-triggered scheme, actuator fault, external disturbance and network-induced delay. Based on this model and with the aid of Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional method, a delay-dependent sufficient condition is derived to guarantee the stability of the resulting closed-loop system with prescribed H_∞ performance. Furthermore, an observed-based sliding mode FTC law is synthesized to make sure the reachability of the sliding surface. Finally, simulation results are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Adaptive tracking control for nonlinear heterogeneous multi-agent systems with unknown dynamics

This paper is concerned with the tracking control problem for nonlinear heterogeneous multi-agent systems with a static leader, where the leader’s state is only available to a small portion of follower agents. The considered multi-agent system is composed of first- and second-order follower agents with unknown nonlinearities and unknown disturbances, and the communication graph of follower agents is fixed and directed. A robust adaptive neural network controller is designed for each follower agent. By applying the Lyapunov theory with the singular value analysis method, it is shown that all follower agents will synchronize to the leader agent with bounded residual errors. A numerical example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical findings.     

Event-triggered nonlinear filtering for networked systems with correlated noises

This paper focuses on the filtering problem for nonlinear networked systems with event-triggered data transmission and correlated noises. An event-triggered data transmission mechanism is introduced to reduce excessive measurements transmitted over a bandwidth-constrained network. Considering that process noise and measurement noise are one-step cross-correlated, an UKF-based filtering algorithm which depends on correlation parameter and trigger threshold is presented. Then sufficient conditions are established to ensure stability of the designed filter, where a critical value of the correlation parameter exists. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed filtering algorithm is demonstrated by comparative simulations.     

Containment control for second-order nonlinear multi-agent systems with aperiodically intermittent position measurements

In some real systems, the intermittent communications and the inaccurate velocity measurements are usually inevitable. To overcome these two communication limitations, this article aims at investigating the containment control problem for a class of second-order multi-agent systems with inherent nonlinear dynamics and aperiodically intermittent position measurements. Under the case that the velocity information is unavailable, a distributed filter is introduced for each second-order follower. Based on the distributed filter, a novel intermittent containment control protocol without velocity measurements is designed. Some sufficient conditions are derived under the common assumption that only relative position measurements between the neighbouring agents are utilized intermittently, and these conditions ensure that the second-order nonlinear multi-agent systems can achieve containment control. Furthermore, some simpler containment conditions are obtained for multi-agent systems with double-integrator dynamics under aperiodically intermittent communications. Finally, numerical simulations are provided to verify the effectiveness of the theoretical results.     

Output containment control of heterogeneous multi-agent systems with leaders of bounded inputs: An adaptive finite-time observer approach

In this paper, we address the problem of output containment control of general linear multi-agent systems (MASs). The MAS under consideration is comprised by multiple followers and multiple leaders, all with heterogeneous dynamics. In particular, the leaders’ dynamics are subject to heterogeneous non-zero (possibly persistent) but bounded inputs, which are not measurable for any follower agent, making the associated distributed control design problem rather challenging. A new distributed observer-based containment control protocol is proposed to overcome associated challenges. It consists of two hierarchical layers including (i) the first layer of adaptive finite-time cooperative observer responsible for estimating the convex-hull signals formed by multiple leaders’ states through inter-agent collaboration; and (ii) the second layer of distributed state-feedback controller responsible for local tracking control through a modified output regulation technique. Important novelties of the proposed protocol are that (i) it deals with MASs with not only heterogeneous followers but also heterogeneous leaders; (ii) exact output containment control performance can be achieved in the presence of unmeasurable leaders’ inputs and unknown connectivity of communication network; and (iii) associated solvability conditions are formulated as linear matrix inequalities plus linear algebraic equations, which can be tested and solved effectively via efficient semi-definite programming. The developed theoretical results are demonstrated both rigorously using Lyapunov methods and through numerical simulations.     

Adaptive iterative learning protocol design for nonlinear multi-agent systems with unknown control direction

This paper investigates a new adaptive iterative learning control protocol design for uncertain nonlinear multi-agent systems with unknown gain signs. Based on Nussbaum gain, adaptive iterative learning control protocols are designed for each follower agent and the adaptive laws depend on the information available from the agents in the neighbourhood. The proper protocols guarantee each follower agent track the leader perfectly on the finite time interval and the Nussbaum-type item can seek control direction adaptively. Furthermore, the formation problem is studied as an extension. Finally, simulation examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in this article.     

Event-triggered fault estimation and fault-tolerant control for networked control systems

This paper is concerned with the event-triggered fault estimation and fault-tolerant control for continuous-time dynamic systems subject to system fault and external disturbance under network environment. Firstly, based on the event-triggered sampling, a fault diagnosis observer is constructed to estimate both the system state and the system fault simultaneously, and a multi-objective constraint is established to guarantee the estimation accuracy. Based on the estimated system state and fault signal, a fault-tolerant controller is proposed to compensate the influence of occurred faults and maintain the system performance. The event-triggered scheme and the fault-tolerant controller are co-designed to guarantee the required performance of faulty system and reduce the consumption of communication resources. Finally, simulation results of an F-404 aircraft engine system are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Containment control of singular heterogeneous multi-agent systems

In this paper, we first consider the containment control problem of singular heterogeneous multi-agent systems, where all the followers converge to the convex hull spanned by the leaders. To solve this problem, we propose two distributed control laws: one is based on the state feedback control framework, which is suitable for the case that the full state information of each follower is accessible; and the other is based on the output regulation framework, where each follower only can access to its output. Furthermore, the distributed observers are designed for every follower to estimate the convex combination of the leader states which is determined by the communication graph. It should be noted that our results can also regard the non-singular multi-agent systems’ containment control problem as a special case. Finally, simulation results corroborate the effectiveness of our analytical results.     

Iterative learning control for fractional-order multi-agent systems

In this paper, we apply iterative learning control to both linear and nonlinear fractional-order multi-agent systems to solve consensus tacking problem. Both fixed and iteration-varying communicating graphs are addressed in this paper. For linear systems, a PD^α-type update law with initial state learning mechanism is introduced by virtue of the memory property of fractional-order derivative. For nonlinear systems, a D^α-type update law with forgetting factor and initial state learning is designed. Sufficient conditions for both linear and nonlinear systems are established to guarantee all agents achieving the asymptotic output consensus. Simulation examples are provided to verify the proposed schemes.     

Observer based leader-following consensus of second-order multi-agent systems with nonuniform sampled position data

This paper deals with the leader-following consensus problem of multi-agent systems with the consideration that each agent can only transmit its position state to the neighbors at irregular discrete sampling times. In the proposed algorithm, a continuous-discrete time observer is designed for the continuous estimation of both position and velocity from the discrete position information of the neighbors. These estimated states are then used for designing a continuous control law which solves the leader-following consensus problem. Moreover, the dynamics of the leader is not fixed and can be controlled through an external input. The stability analysis has been carried out by employing the Lyapunov approach which provides sufficient conditions to tune the parameters according to the maximum allowable sampling period. The developed algorithm has been simulated and then tested on an actual multi-robot system consisting of three differential drive wheeled robots. Both simulation and hardware results validate the effectiveness of the control algorithm.     

Event-triggered control for active vehicle suspension systems with network-induced delays

This paper presents a novel event-triggered H_∞ static output-feedback control for active vehicle suspension systems with network-induced delays. The proposed control schema introduces an event-triggering mechanism in the suspension system such that the communication resources can be significantly saved. By applying some improved slack inequalities and an augmented Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional (LKF), a new design condition expressed in the form of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) is developed to derive the desired event-triggered controller. The obtained algorithm is then employed to solve the static output-feedback control gain. Compared with the traditional sampled-data H_∞ control scheme, the proposed controller is able to provide an enhanced disturbance attenuation level while saving the control cost. Finally, comparative simulation results are provided to show the performance of the proposed event-triggered controller.     

Event-triggered sliding mode control of uncertain switched systems under denial-of-service attacks

This study is concerned with the event-triggered sliding mode control problem for a class of cyber-physical switched systems, in which the Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks may randomly occur according to the Bernoulli distribution. A key issue is how to design the output feedback sliding mode control (SMC) law for guaranteeing the dynamical performance of the closed-loop system under DoS attacks. To this end, an event-triggered mechanism is firstly introduced to reduce the communication load, under which the measurement signal is transmitted only when a certain triggering condition is satisfied. An usable output signal for the controller is constructed to compensate the effect of unmeasured states and DoS attacks. And then, a dynamic output feedback sliding mode controller is designed by means of the attack probability and the compensated output signals. Both the reachability and the mean-square exponential stability of sliding mode dynamics are investigated and the corresponding sufficient conditions are obtained. Finally, some numerical simulation results are provided.     

Integral sliding-mode fixed-time consensus tracking for second-order non-linear and time delay multi-agent systems

In this paper, fixed-time consensus tracking problems under directed interaction topologies for second-order non-linear multi-agent systems with disturbance and second-order multi-agent systems with input delay are investigated. Two continuous integral terminal sliding modes are designed, which can effectively eliminate the singularity and chattering. Correspondingly, two fixed-time distributed control protocols are proposed based on the designed continuous ITSM to ensure that the consensus tracking are achieved in fixed-time. It is shown that the upper bounds of settling time are regardless of initial conditions. The rigorous proofs are given by employing Lyapunov stability theory and fixed-time stability theory. Simulations are provided to verify the effectiveness of the theoretical results.