Cloud-Based Time-Varying Formation Predictive Control of Multi-Agent Systems With Random Communication Constraints and Quantized Signals

• Published in: IEEE transactions on circuits and systems. II, Express briefs Vol. 69; no. 3; pp. 1282 - 1286
• Main Authors: Pang, Zhong-Hua, Zheng, Chang-Bing, Li, Chao, Liu, Guo-Ping, Han, Qing-Long
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.03.2022; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Actuators; Cloud computing; Communication; Constraints; Control methods; Controllers; Delays; Feedback control; Measurement; Multi-agent systems (MASs); Multiagent systems; networked predictive control; Predictive control; Protocols; Quantization (signal); quantized signals; random communication constraints; time-varying formation; Time-varying systems
• ISSN: 1549-7747; 1558-3791
• DOI: 10.1109/TCSII.2021.3106694

This brief is concerned with the time-varying formation problem for second-order networked multi-agent systems, which are subject to random communication delays and packet dropouts in the sensor-to-controller and controller-to-actuator channels of each agent. A cloud-based time-varying formation predictive control method with control input quantization is proposed to actively compensate for those random communication constraints. A definition of quantized time-varying formation is given, and then a necessary and sufficient condition to achieve the quantized time-varying formation as well as the stability of the resulting closed-loop system is obtained, which is independent of random communication constraints and quantization errors. Simulation results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.