Event-triggered-based encoding–decoding consensus control of continuous-time multi-agent systems under DoS attacks

Abstract

The security of multi-agent systems (MASs) is important particularly when considering the potential threat posed by malicious attackers. Specifically, network attacks and information theft caused by attackers have garnered significant attention due to their potential to destroy the consensus of the system. Therefore, this paper presents a novel approach to achieve leader-following consensus control of continuous-time MASs under DoS attacks, leveraging event-triggered encoding and decoding techniques. When the DoS attacks occur, the transmitted information between agents becomes unavailable. To address this challenge, a buffer is introduced to store the latest transmission data and then the stored data can be used when the DoS attacks exist. We also propose an event-triggered encoding–decoding strategy that can be employed for privacy protection in linear continuous-time MASs. The transmitted data is encoded as a codeword before transmitting, and the encoder updates it when event-triggered conditions are met. The receiving end decodes the data upon receipt. Furthermore, a distributed switching controller is designed using the encoded and stored state values to achieve leader-following consensus. The control gain is calculated to obtain sufficient conditions for DoS attacks through the linear matrix inequalities (LMI) and Lyapunov functions. The boundedness of transmitted data and the Zeno phenomenon are also analyzed. Finally, numerical simulations are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm.