Event-triggered consensus control for uncertain multi-agent systems with external disturbance

Abstract

This paper investigates the event-triggered consensus control for a general linear multi-agent system with model uncertainties and external disturbances. A consensus protocol is proposed using the local state information at asynchronous event-triggering time instants, where each agent determines when to perform sampling and control updating using the designed event-triggered condition. Then the robust consensus condition and the feedback matrix design method are derived to make the uncertain multi-agent system reach consensus with a desired disturbance attenuation ability. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the Zeno behaviour will never occur by giving the lower bound of inter-event time intervals. Finally, a simulation example is given to verify the obtained theoretical results, with the comparison simulation conducted by using the periodic triggering strategy.

Keywords:

• Multi-agent system
• consensus
• event-triggered control
• external disturbance
• model uncertainty
• linear dynamics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) [grant number 61473015, 61327807, 61520106010, 61503231], and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

Notes on contributors

Yang Liu

Yang Liu received the B.S. degree in mathematics and the Ph.D. degree in control theory and applications both from Beihang University (BUAA), Beijing, China, in 2005 and 2010, respectively. In 2010, she joined the Seventh Research Division at Beihang University, where she is currently an Associate Professor of automatic control. Her research interests include multi-agent system, robust control and event-triggered control.

Yingmin Jia

Yingmin Jia received the B.S. degree in control theory from Shandong University, Jinan, China, in January 1982, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees both in control theory and applications from Beihang University (BUAA), Beijing, China, in 1990 and 1993, respectively. In 1993, he joined the Seventh Research Division at Beihang University, where he is currently Professor of automatic control. From February 1995 until February 1996, he was a visiting professor with the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. He held an Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) research fellowship with the Institute of Control Engineering at the Technical University Hamburg-Harburg, Hamburg, Germany, from December 1996 until March 1998, and a JSPS research fellowship with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Systems at the Osaka Prefecture University, Osaka, Japan, from March 2000 until March 2002. He was a visiting professor with the Department of Statistics at the University of California Berkeley from December 2006 until March 2007. His current research interests include is author and co-author of numerous papers and of the book “Robust H∞ Control” (Science Press 2007).