Semi-global output consensus of a group of linear systems in the presence of external disturbances and actuator saturation: An output regulation approach

Abstract

Summary This paper studies the problem of semi-global leader-following output consensus of a multi-agent system. The output of each follower agent in the system, described by a same general linear system subject to external disturbances and actuator saturation, is to track the output of the leader, described by a linear system, which also generates disturbances as the exosystem does in the classical output regulation problem. Conditions on the agent dynamics are identified, under which a low-gain feedback-based linear state-control algorithm is constructed for each follower agent such that the output consensus is achieved when the communication topology among the agents is a digraph containing no loop, and the leader is reachable from any follower agent. We also extend the results to the non-identical disturbance case. In this case, conditions based on both the agent dynamics and the communication topology are identified, under which a low-gain feedback-based linear state-control algorithm is constructed for each follower agent such that the leader-following output consensus is achieved when the communication topology among the follower agents is a strongly connected and detailed balanced digraph, and the leader is a neighbor of at least one follower. In addition, under some further conditions on the agent dynamics, the control algorithm is adapted so as to achieve semi-global leader-following output consensus for a jointly connected undirected graph and the leader reachable from at least one follower. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.