Control of Multi-Agent Systems with Distributed Delay

Abstract

This study deals with the control of nonlinear multi-agent systems in which the interconnections among the agents can be modeled using distributed delay terms. It was shown that in the addressed multi-agent system class, the stabilization of the agent outputs can be performed with a prescribed precision. The proposed decentralized control approach combines passivity-based control, the synchronization of dynamic systems, and delay systems theory to achieve the control goal. As an application, the control of single-species migration networks with distributed delay was addressed. The setpoint control problem in such networks can be solved by extending the proposed passivity-based control with a suitably chosen feed-forward term. Simulation results are also provided to show the applicability of the proposed control strategy.