Stochastic leader-following consensus of discrete-time nonlinear multi-agent systems with multiplicative noises

Abstract

This paper studies the stochastic leader-following consensus problem of discrete-time nonlinear multi-agent systems (MASs) with multiplicative noises. The measurement information obtained from agents’ neighbors is inevitably affected by communication uncertainties, where the multiplicative noise is one of the important communication uncertainties. Multiplicative noises together with the intrinsic nonlinear dynamics bring more difficulties in the consensus control design under the leader-following topology. To solve the problem, the parameter-dependent Lyapunov functions are constructed to analyze the consensus control of first-order and second-order MASs, respectively. Some sufficient conditions, explicitly related to control gains, intensity of multiplicative noises and the Lipschitz constant regarding nonlinear functions, are established for reaching the mean square (m.s.) and almost sure (a.s.) leader-following consensus. Specifically, the obtained conditions are some scalar inequalities, which are more convenient in engineering application. Numerical simulations are conducted to validate the theoretical results.