Observer-based distributed consensus for general nonlinear multi-agent systems with interval control inputs

Abstract

In this paper, observer-based distributed consensus for general nonlinear multi-agent systems with interval control inputs under strongly connected balanced topology is encountered when the relative states of agents are unavailable or undesirable. Theoretical analysis method is further extended to the case of general nonlinear multi-agent systems under switching setting. Moreover, tracking problem on the leader–follower scenario is also explicitly investigated under a mutual assumption that the communication graph, which represents the interaction among agents, contains a directed spanning tree with the leader as its root. It is shown that the consensus for underlying considered multi-agent systems can be desirable as long as the data missing rate does not exceed a certain threshold. Finally, simulation examples are presented to effectively corroborate the analytical findings.

Keywords:

• multi-agent system
• consensus
• data missing
• interval control inputs

Acknowledgements

The authors are most grateful to the reviewers for a number of constructive comments and suggestions that have improved the quality of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the NSF of Zhejiang Province of China [grant number LY14A010008]; the NNSF of China [grant number 11101373], [grant number 11271333], [grant number 61374077].