Sampled-data event-triggered control with application to quadcopter formations

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel distributed formation controller for general linear multi-agent systems with application to multiple quadcopters. First, a new locally computable state-estimate-based event-triggering communication condition is proposed for each agent. Then, the formation tracking problem is formulated as a stability analysis, controller gain and event-generator gain design problem of the closed-loop formation error dynamics. Sufficient conditions that guarantee the co-existence of a valid formation controller and an event-triggered communication mechanism are derived using a Lyapunov-based method and linear matrix inequality techniques. In addition, equivalent low (agent-sized) dimensional sufficient conditions are obtained to reduce the computational complexity. For the simulation conditions used in this research, the proposed estimate-based event-triggered communication mechanism generates less data communication instants when compared with traditional state-error-based mechanisms while still achieving similar control performance.

Keywords:

• Mutli-agent system
• formation tracking control
• sampled-data control
• event-triggered communication
• quadcopters

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Government of Nova Scotia and Dalhousie University for their financial support.

Disclosure statement

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