Leader-Centric Time-Varying Formation Tracking Control for Multi-Agent Systems via Event-Triggered Mechanism

Abstract

This letter introduces a novel event-triggered control design methodology for achieving leader-centric time-varying formation tracking (LCTVFT) in linear multi-agent systems (MASs) subject to actuator bias faults. Within this framework, the leader dynamically determines the desired formation for the followers, which is unknown to them a priori. Achieving formation tracking, despite actuator bias faults and unpredictable leader maneuvering, strictly requires the followers to continuously infer the leader’s decisions and take control actions, posing significant implementation challenges. To address this issue, a fixed-time event-triggered formation observer (ETFO) is proposed to estimate the leader’s information through event-triggered updates, thereby enabling responsive formation tracking. The fixed-time stability of the overall closed-loop system is rigorously established over every subinterval of leader-assigned formations using Lyapunov stability analysis. A simulation example is provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.