Fully Distributed Secure Consensus Control for Cyber-Physical Systems Against Actuator Fault and Denial-of-Service Attack

The cooperative control problem for cyber-physical systems under actuator faults and denial-of-service attacks is investigated, where each subsystem can be modeled by an agent and denial-of-service attacks are viewed as attacks against the inter-agent communication. Specifically, a scenario is considered in which the communication topology loses connectivity following a denial-of-service attack. To address the above problem, a fully distributed secure control strategy is proposed. This strategy combines a distributed observer with an observer-based fault-tolerant consensus control method. Therein, the assumptions that the leader’s communication links are unbreakable and the switched topology contains a spanning tree are further relaxed based on the idea of a jointly connected topology. In addition, this paper also has the following features: Firstly, the proposed scheme eliminates the need for all agents to have prior knowledge of the leader’s dynamics, making the scenario considered in this work more general and applicable. Secondly, the control method presented in this paper does not rely on any global topology information, allowing it to be implemented in a completely distributed manner. Building on the proposed scheme, even under denial-of-service attacks and actuator faults, the consensus problem for cyber-physical systems can be realized. Finally, simulations are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Note to Practitioners—CPSs are regarded as the core technology for the next generation of manufacturing, with widespread applications in fields such as autonomous driving systems, smart grids, and intelligent manufacturing. The advantage of CPSs lies in their ability to tightly integrate physical processes with computational and communication technologies, enabling efficient and intelligent system operations. However, in engineering practice, while the application of network technologies has brought great convenience and significantly improved operational efficiency, their open nature also makes CPSs vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Additionally, during long-term operation, CPSs inevitably face fault issues, which can negatively affect system performance, potentially leading to partial system failure or a decline in stability. Based on the above analysis, a fully distributed secure consensus control strategy is proposed, which incorporates a distributed observer and an observer-based fault-tolerant consensus control method. The proposed strategy does not require all agents to have prior knowledge of the leader’s dynamics information, offering greater flexibility and adaptability. More importantly, the assumptions that the leader’s communication links are unbreakable and that the switched topology contains a spanning tree are further relaxed. This makes the solution applicable to a broader range of real-world scenarios.