Distributed finite-time safety–critical consensus control for multi-agent systems and its application to microgrids

This paper focuses on the problem of distributed finite-time safety–critical consensus control for a class of multi-agent systems with switching networks and external disturbances. All followers with unsafe initial states are expected to enter and stay within a safe set in a finite time, and then track a leader asymptotically. To address this problem, a distributed finite-time robust control framework is formulated from a new perspective, where a stability condition and two soft-minimum barrier function-based safety conditions are derived to drive the follower system to enter and remain within safe zone in a finite time. Additionally, a nominal distributed robust consensus controller is designed by exploiting an improved dynamic compensator and a disturbance observer. Also, a synthesized distributed robust controller can drive the follower system to enter the safe set in a finite time and achieve the safety–critical asymptotic consensus tracking. Finally, the effectiveness is verified by applying the control approach to a microgrid example.