Output-feedback distributed consensus for nonlinear multi-agent systems with quantization

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the distributed consensus problem for a class of nonlinear multi-agent systems. Firstly, the uniform quantizer with scaling function is considered in the communication channels to reduce the communication burden. Secondly, noting that the state’ information of each agent cannot be directly obtained, we design a suitable observer to rebuild the states of the nonlinear systems with the help of dynamic gain function. Since the information of communication quantization and state observation is coupled to each other, it is necessary to jointly design uniform quantizer with scaling function and the observer. Based on this, a distributed control protocol is proposed, which leads to a distributed asymptotic consensus of overall nonlinear systems with either known or unknown Lipschitz constant through ⌈log2(2R)⌉-bit information exchange between each pair of agents. Finally, to validity the feasibility of the control scheme, a simulation example is provided.