Distributed Containment Control for Nonlinear Multi‐Agent Systems with Time‐Delayed Protocol

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, the containment control problem is considered for nonlinear multi‐agent systems with directed communication topology. Under the guidance of designed distributed communication protocols with/without previous state information, the followers are expected to converge to a dynamic convex hull spanned by multiple leaders. Two multi‐step algorithms are proposed to construct the corresponding protocols, the state feedback protocol and the delay‐coupled protocol, under which the containment control can be achieved asymptotically. Furthermore, it is found that the delay‐coupled protocol is rather sensitive to time delays. That is, real‐time tracking will become impossible by only using long‐dated previous state information. Finally, a numerical example is given to demonstrate the applicability and efficiency of the proposed schemes.