Robust containment control for a class of heterogeneous uncertain nonlinear multi-agent systems in lower triangular form

Abstract

This paper studies the robust containment control problem for a class of nonlinear multi-agent systems in lower triangular form with parameter uncertainty. The agents are heterogenous with the particularity that the dynamics of the leaders are totally different from those of the followers. The interconnection topology is described by a general directed graph. Based on the distributed internal model, the robust containment control problem is first converted into the stabilisation problem for an augmented network. A distributed state feedback control is then proposed to solve the stabilisation problem of the subsequent augmented network by the block backstepping technique. Under the proposed control, all the followers' outputs will converge to the convex hull spanned by the leaders.

Keywords:

• Containment
• nonlinearmulti-agentsystems
• heterogeneous
• uncertainparameter
• internal model

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work is partially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2017YFB1103200), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61601228, 41974033), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20161021, BK20180726).

Notes on contributors

Jing Zhao

Zhao Jing is an associate Professor with Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications. Her research interests include fault diagnosis and fault tolerant control and their applications.

Shibin Shen

Shen Shibin is a Senior Engineer with Nanjing Normal University. His current research focuses on intelligent vehicle control, multi-agent system.

Fei Xie

Xie Fei is an associate Professor with School of Electrical and Automation Engineering, Nanjing Normal University. His current research focuses on navigation, guidance and control technology.

Yanfei Sun

Sun Yanfei is a Professor with the Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications. His current research interests include future networks, industrial Internet, and energy Internet.

Fengyu Xu

Xu Fengyu is a Professor with the Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications. His research interests include soft robotics, field robotics, biomimetic robot.