Fixed-time surrounding control of multi-agent systems under denial-of-service attacks

Abstract

In the field of multi-agent systems, accomplishing reliable coordination amid cyberattacks poses a significant challenge. This paper tackles the surrounding control problem, where follower agents must create a circular formation around the dynamic leaders when Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks disrupt the communication links between followers and leaders. We propose a novel fixed-time strategy that ensures followers not only estimate the leaders’ geometric center with resilience to DoS attacks but also achieve the desired surrounding formation within a predictable time frame. By introducing a distributed estimator, each follower can track the leaders’ center despite partial communication losses, while a carefully designed controller guarantees rapid convergence to the surrounding formation. The presented approach distinguishes itself by simultaneously tackling DoS attacks and time-sensitive performance, ensuring practical fixed-time stability even during DoS attacks. The stability of proposed materials is supported by rigorous Lyapunov-based analyses, and numerical simulations evaluate the performance of the presented framework.