ABSTRACT
This paper studiesthe cooperative tracking control problem for multi-agent systems with unknown external disturbances under a directed graph. The leader's input is nonzero and unavailable to the followers. Based on the relative output measurements of neighbouring agents, a novel observer-based cooperative tracking protocol is presented, where the a group of intermediate estimators are constructed to estimate the tracking errors and the combined signal of the disturbances and the leader's input simultaneously, then decentralised tracking protocols are designed based on the obtained estimates. The states of the global tracking error system are proved to be uniformly ultimately bounded. A numerical example of aircraft illustrates the effectiveness of the cooperative tracking protocol.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by the Funds of National Science of China (Grant Nos. 61420106016 and 61621004) and the Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Synthetical Automation for Process Industries (Grant no. 2013ZCX01-01).
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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Notes on contributors
Jun-Wei Zhu
Jun-Wei Zhu received the B.S. degree in Control Theory and Engineering from Northeastern University, China, in 2008, the M.S. degree in Control Theory and Engineering from Shenyang University, China, in 2011,and the Ph.D.degree in Control Theory and Engineering from Northeastern University, China, in 2016. Currently, he is an Associate Professor at the College of Information Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, His research interests include control of network systems, fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control.
Guang-Hong Yang
Guang-Hong Yang received the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Northeast University, China, in 1983, 1986, and 1994, respectively. From 2001 to 2005, he was a Research Scientist/Senior Research Scientist with the National University of Singapore. He is currently a Professor at the College of Information Science and Engineering, Northeastern University. He is an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems, the International Journal of Systems Science, and the IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems. His current research interests include fault-tolerant control, fault detection and isolation, non-fragile control systems design, and robust control.
Wen-An Zhang
Wen-An Zhang received the B.Eng. degree in automation and the Ph.D. degree in control theory and control engineering from the Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China, in 2004 and 2010, respectively. He has been with the Zhejiang University of Technology, since 2010, where he is currently a Professor with the Department of Automation. He was a Senior Research Associate with the Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Engineering Management, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, from 2010 to 2011. His current research interests include networked control systems, information fusion and intelligent mobile robots. Dr. Zhang was a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship from 2011 to 2012.
Li Yu
Li Yu received the B.S. degree in control theory from Nankai University, Tianjin, China, in 1982, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. He is currently a Professor with the College of Information Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou. He has authored or coauthored four books and over 200 journal or conference papers. His current research interests include robust control, time-delay systems, and networked control systems.