Global cooperative output regulation for nonlinear multi-agent systems with unknown control directions

This paper proposes a novel two-layer distributed control scheme for global cooperative output regulation for a class of nonlinear multi-agent systems. The concerned systems are (i) heterogeneous and uncertain, (ii) with unknown local control directions, and (iii) under a directed communication graph. To cope with the problem, a two-layer control structure is first configured and distributed and decentralized laws are developed for the layers respectively. Then we demonstrate that combination of the control laws may lead to an effective solution to the cooperative output regulation problem. Finally, an illustrative example is given to show the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm.