A Fully Distributed Protocol for Flocking of Time-Varying Linear Systems With Dynamic Leader and External Disturbance

Abstract

This article studies the flocking problem of multiagent systems (MASs) with a dynamic virtual leader (VL) for the linear systems subject to time-varying uncertainties and external disturbance problems. We assume that the agents follow a leader with a bounded acceleration, which information is sensed only by the informed agents. We assign an adaptive estimator to each uninformed agent to estimate the velocity of the leader. By deriving a lemma and using a standard adaptive law, we design a continuous adaptive controller for solving the problem under the mentioned challenges, which is also fully distributed. The designed flocking control ensures that the velocity of followers asymptotically is converged to that of the VL. Also, the agents’ network remains connected, and no collision occurs among agents. Finally, we present a simulation that illustrates the validity of the results.