Delay tolerant containment control for second-order multi-agent systems based on communication topology design

Abstract

In this paper, a delay tolerant containment control problem for second-order multi-agent systems (MASs) is studied. Considering the disturbance caused by the time-varying delays between agents, we utilize the delay tolerant character of MASs with multiple leaders to redesign the topology of concerned MASs and solve the containment control problem. Corresponding sufficient and necessary conditions on the communication digraph of the MAS are developed to ensure the followers converging to interior points of a convex hull formed by the leaders. Furthermore, considering the inevitable delays between the communications of agents, we present the topology design algorithm in light of the proposed conditions to solve the delay tolerant containment control problem for the second-order MAS. In this case, we focus on how to redesign the communication topology structure instead of constructing a proper distributed cooperative controller. Finally, some examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the obtained results.