Leader-following consensus of nonlinear discrete-time multi-agent systems with limited communication channel capacity

This paper considers the problem of the leader-following consensus of generally nonlinear discrete-time multi-agent systems with limited communication channel capacity over directed fixed communication networks. The leader agent and all follower agents are with multi-dimensional nonlinear dynamics. We propose a novel kind of consensus algorithm for each follower agent based on dynamic encoding and decoding algorithms and conduct a rigorous analysis for consensus convergence. It is proved that under the consensus algorithm designed, the leader-following consensus is achievable and the quantizers equipped for the multi-agent systems can never be saturated. Furthermore, we give the explicit forms of the data transmission rate for the connected communication channel. By properly designing the system parameters according to restriction conditions, we can ensure the consensus and communication efficiency with merely one bit information exchanging between each pair of adjacent agents per step. Finally, simulation example is presented to verify the validity of results obtained.