Predefined-time leader-following consensus for nonholonomic chained-form multiagent dynamic systems

ABSTRACT

In addition to stability and accuracy, rapidity is another important index of the performance of control systems. The current fixed time design cannot meet the requirement for rapidity. The design to meet this requirement must be such that the settling time can be given in advance, that is, the so-called predefined-time design. This paper deals with the predefined-time consensus problem for a class of nonholonomic chained-form multiagent dynamic systems with unknown disturbances. First, a distributed observer for each follower is investigated such that the leader state can be estimated by the followers in a predefined time. Based on this observer, a switching consensus tracking controller is proposed to ensure that the tracking errors converge to zero within a predefined time. Compared with the existing finite-time and fixed-time schemes, the upper bound of the settling time is an directly tunable control parameter, and the settling time can be easily tuned by the control parameter. The stability of the closed-loop system is proved by the Lyapunov method. A simulation example of wheeled mobile robots is performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controllers.

Keywords:

• Distributed consensus control
• predefined-time control
• chained-form systems
• multiagent systems

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai [19ZR1436000] and National Defense Basic Research Program [JCKY2019413D001].

Notes on contributors

Dengyu Liang

Dengyu Liang is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in control science and engineering at University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China. His current research interests include distributed control of nonholonomic systems, nonlinear control theory and control of mobile robots.

Chaoli Wang

Chaoli Wang received the B.S. and M.Sc. degrees from Mathematics Department, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China, in 1986 and 1992, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in control theory and engineering from the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Beijing, China, in 1999. He is a Professor with the School of Optical-Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China. From 1999 to 2000, he was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Robotics Laboratory of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China. From 2001 to 2002, he was a Research Associate with the Department of Automation and Computer-Aided Engineering, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Since 2003, he has been with the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China. His current research interests include nonlinear control, robust control, robot dynamic and control, visual servoing feedback control, and pattern identification.

Yujing Xu

Yujing Xu received the M.Sc. degree in Shandong University of Technology in 2018. She is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in control science and engineering at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China. Her current research interests include nonlinear adaptive control, formation control, multi-agent systems, and the control of Nonholonomic mobile robot.

Yu Li

Yu Li received the M.E. degree from University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China in 2017 and is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in control science and engineering at University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China. His current research interests include nonlinear control theory distributed control of multiagent systems, quantized and adaptive control.