Practical Predefined-Time Output-Feedback Consensus Tracking Control for Multiagent Systems

• Published in: IEEE transactions on cybernetics Vol. 53; no. 8; pp. 5311 - 5322
• Main Authors: Zou, An-Min, Liu, Yangyang, Hou, Zeng-Guang, Hu, Zhipei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01.08.2023; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Consensus control; Control systems; Control theory; Design parameters; Disturbances; Multi-agent systems; Multiagent systems; multiagent systems (MASs); Numerical stability; Observers; Output feedback; practical predefined-time (PPT) stability; Sliding mode control; Stability criteria; State observers; Topology; Tracking control; Tracking errors; Trajectory analysis
• ISSN: 2168-2267; 2168-2275; 2168-2275
• DOI: 10.1109/TCYB.2022.3207325

This article addresses the issue of output-feedback consensus control of multiagent systems under the directed topology and subject to bounded external disturbances. By employing a smooth time-varying function, a distributed practical predefined-time (PPT) observer is developed to estimate the reference trajectory for the entire team (i.e., the leader's state) and a practical preset-time extended-state observer is also proposed to estimate bounded disturbances and unmeasurable system states. Next, a novel continuous and nonsingular PPT consensus control law is designed on the basis of the observers. Furthermore, the designed control protocol can achieve PPT stability, that is, consensus tracking errors are enforced to a neighborhood around zero within a predetermined time, which can be specified a priori , independent of initial states of agents and/or any other design parameters. Finally, illustrative numerical examples, including a comparative one, are provided to demonstrate the performance of the present predefined-time control approach.