A survey on fault-tolerant consensus control of multi-agent systems: trends, methodologies and prospects

Abstract

The consensus control problem of multi-agent systems (MASs) has received an increasing research interest with ever-developing consensus theory. Before it can be widely applied to actual engineering, the consensus theory needs to be improved by addressing some practical problems. One of the key problems is how to ensure the desirable performance of each agent as well as the entire MAS when confronted with faults, which is referred to as the fault-tolerant consensus control (FTCC) issue. In this survey, we review the classic and recent results in the context of FTCC from two aspects, namely, physical security and logical security. In addition, we provide the latest results on FTCC where the physical and logical security are considered simultaneously in a framework. Finally, we outline several potential future research topics on the FTCC issue.

Keywords:

• Multi-agent system
• fault-tolerant control
• consensus
• actuator fault
• sensor fault
• privacy preserving

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grants 61733009], National Key Research and Development Program of China [Grant 2017YFA0700300], China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [Grant 2021M701902], and Shuimu Scholar Program of Tsinghua University [Grant 2021SM040].

Notes on contributors

Chen Gao

Chen Gao received the M.Eng. degree in Navigation, Guidance and Control from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China, in 2016, and the Ph.D. degree in Control Science and Engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2021. From March 2019 to August 2019, she was a visiting scholar in the Department of Computer Science, Brunel University London, London, UK. She is currently Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Automation, Tsinghua University. Her research interests include fault diagnosis, fault-tolerant control and multi-agent systems.

Xiao He

Xiao He received the B.Sc. degree in Information Technology from Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China, in 2004, and the Ph.D. degree in Control Science and Engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2010. He is currently a tenured professor in the Department of Automation, Tsinghua University. He has authored more than 90 papers in refereed international journals. His research interests include fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control, networked systems, cyber-physical systems, as well as their applications. Dr  He is now Full Member of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, Senior Member of the Chinese Association of Automation, and Senior Member of the IEEE. He is Associate Editor of the Control Engineering Practice.

Hongli Dong

Hongli Dong received the Ph.D. degree in Control Science and Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in 2012. From 2009 to 2010, she was Research Assistant in the Department of Applied Mathematics, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. From 2010 to 2011, she was Research Assistant in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. From 2011 to 2012, she was Visiting Scholar in the Department of Information Systems and Computing, Brunel University London, London, UK. From 2012 to 2014, she was an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow with the University of Duisburg–Essen, Duisburg, Germany. She is currently Professor with the Artificial Intelligence Energy Research Institute, Northeast Petroleum University, Daqing, China. She is also the Director of the Heilongjiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Networking and Intelligent Control, Daqing. Her current research interests include robust control and networked control systems.

Hongjian Liu

Hongjian Liu received his B.Sc. degree in Applied Mathematics in 2003 from Anhui University, Hefei, China, and the M.Sc. degree in Detection Technology and Automation Equipment in 2009 from Anhui Polytechnic University, Wuhu, China, and the Ph.D. degree in Control Science and Engineering in 2018 from Donghua University, Shanghai, China. In 2016, he was Research Assistant in the Department of Mathematics, Texas A&M University at Qatar, Doha, Qatar, for two months. From March 2017 to March 2018, he was Visiting Scholar in the Department of Information Systems and Computing, Brunel University London, UK. He is currently Professor in the School of Mathematics and Physics, Anhui Polytechnic University, Wuhu, China. Dr Liu's current research interests include filtering theory, memristive neural networks, and network communication systems.

Guangran Lyu

Guangran Lyu is currently pursuing a bachelor's degree in the Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. He is also serving as a research assistant at Tsinghua University. His research interests include multi-agent systems, fault-tolerant control, cyber-physical systems and their applications.