Robust Leader–Followers Consensus for Nonlinear Multiagent Systems With Exogenous Disturbances via Dynamic Triggered Strategies

The article investigates the leader–followers consensus problem of nonlinear multiagent systems with nonlinear dynamics and uncertain exogenous disturbances, employing dynamic triggered strategies (DTSs). An active disturbance rejection control is utilized to design a disturbance observer for estimating the disturbances in the input channel. To enhance communication efficiency and reduce energy consumption during information interaction between agents, the disturbances estimator is integrated into the consensus controller to suppress these disturbances. The convergence condition and lower bound of DTSs are derived. Finally, numerical simulations validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Note to Practitioners— The complete system composed of multiple controlled objects in industrial production, transportation, aerospace, and other fields is inevitably influenced by external uncertain signals to varying degrees. The disturbance observer-based control technique effectively addresses the robust consensus problem of MASs. This significantly enhances the stability of most controlled systems operating in complex environments. Simultaneously, the distributed DTSs efficiently reduce communication burden between devices, minimize microprocessor computing power requirements, and save substantial economic costs. Undoubtedly, this offers a novel approach for the development of MASs.