Distributed input observer-based finite-time consensus for the leader-following multi-agent systems

Abstract

This paper mainly studies the problem of robust finite-time consensus for leader-following multi-agent systems in detail-balanced graphs. It is evident that the knowledge of the leader’s input will provide significant assistance to a follower in tracking the leader. For this reason, an observer is constructed to estimate the input of the leader for each follower. Compared with many existing works of leader-following consensus, we do not assume that the input of the leader is bounded, but assume instead that its derivative is bounded. Based on input observer, two discontinuous protocols are proposed firstly that require only the sign information of the differences between a given agent’s state and that of its neighbors. Then, the finite-time consensus and the upper-bound of the settling time are obtained by using matrix theory, Lyapunov control approach, and the algebraic graph theory. Finally, the availability of the theoretical results is demonstrated through an example.