Swarming movement of dynamical multi-agent systems with sampling control and time delays

Abstract

In the complex environments, sampling control has been extensively applied in continue-time systems by means of digital sensors with high reliability and stability. In this paper, swarming movement (or containment consensus) of fractional-order multi-agent systems (FOMAS) with sampling control are studied. Firstly, the collaborative control of fractional-order multi-agent systems with multiple leaders and sapling data is analyzed in an undirected network without delays. A necessary and sufficient condition is presented for the bounded value of sampling period to ensure the containment consensus of FOMAS. Then, by applying Laplace transformation and stability theorem, containment consensus of distributed FOMAS with time delays is investigated in an undirected network. A necessary and sufficient condition is obtained for the bounded value of sampling period and a critical value of delays. Finally, numerical simulations are shown to verify the results.