Consensus of Multiagent Systems With Relative State Saturations

• Published in: IEEE transactions on systems, man, and cybernetics. Systems Vol. 51; no. 4; pp. 2391 - 2402
• Main Authors: Chu, Hongjun, Yue, Dong, Gao, Lixin, Lai, Xiangjing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.04.2021; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Adaptive systems; Connectivity preservation; consensus; Constraints; Laplace equations; Multi-agent systems; Multiagent systems; Nonlinear systems; Output feedback; protocol design; Protocols; relative state saturations; Sensor systems; Stability analysis; State feedback; System theory; Systems theory
• ISSN: 2168-2216; 2168-2232
• DOI: 10.1109/TSMC.2019.2912980

Within the multiagent systems framework, the relative states between neighbors can be acquired by some on-board sensors, and then the relative state saturations inevitably occur due to the limited sensing capabilities. This paper investigates the consensus problem of nonlinear multiagent systems subject to the relative state saturations. Utilizing the incidence matrix and the edge Laplacian, the consensus problem of nonlinear multiagent systems with the relative state saturations can be cast into the stabilization problem of edge dynamics operating on the constrained set. Three types of protocols, namely continuous, intermittent, and adaptive state feedback protocols are, respectively, proposed for achieving the constrained consensus, and meanwhile yielding consensus values. A consensus analysis is provided by virtue of state saturation theory, switched system theory, adaptive theory, and Lyapunov stability theory. Output feedback protocol is also designed. Finally, the obtained results are applied to connectivity preservation for first-order nonlinear multiagent systems, despite the presence of limited communication range and input constraints. The theoretical results are validated by two simulation examples.