Distributed consensus control of nonlinear multi-agent systems with sensor uncertainty

This article focuses on the distributed consensus control problem for nonlinear multi-agent systems subject to sensor uncertainty. To be specific, we study nonlinear multi-agent systems of lower or upper triangular structure with unknown growth rate and sensor uncertainty. A new time-varying gain approach is proposed to construct observers as well as distributed output-feedback controllers. By selecting suitable design parameters, the leader-follower consensus of nonlinear multi-agent systems is achieved. Different from the existing results, a time-varying function in a logarithmic form is introduced to deal with unknown growth rate. Moreover, a monotonically increasing time-varying function is constructed to cope with uncertain sensor sensitivity. Two simulation examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed distributed consensus control algorithms.

Automated summary

This article focuses on the distributed consensus control problem for nonlinear multi-agent systems subject to sensor uncertainty. A new time-varying gain approach is proposed to achieve leader-follower consensus of nonlinear multi-agent systems and handle the unknown growth rate and uncertain sensor sensitivity.