Adaptive distributed observer and the cooperative control of multi-agent systems

Abstract

The distributed observer approach has been an effective way to synthesise a distributed control law for a multi-agent system. However, this approach assumes that all the followers know the system matrix of the leader system, and this assumption may not be desirable in some applications. In this note, we will further introduce an adaptive distributed observer, which is able to estimate both the state and the system matrix of the leader and thus does not require that all the followers know the system matrix of the leader system. We will also point out some applications of the adaptive distributed observer to several cooperative control problems of multi-agent systems such as the leader-following consensus problem, the cooperative output regulation problem and rendezvous and/or flocking.

Keywords:

• Adaptive distributed observer
• multi-agent systems
• distributed control
• cooperative control

Acknowledgements

This note is based on a keynote speech given in the 28th Chinese Control and Decision Conference, Yinchuan, China, 28–30 May 2016. The work described in this note results from the joint research with some of my former and current PhD students Youfeng Su, He Cai, Yi Dong, Wei Liu, and Tao Liu.

Notes

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

1 See Appendix 6 for a summary on digraph.

Additional information

Funding

The research described in this note has been supported by the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region [grant number 14200515].