Robust adaptive bipartite time-varying formation control for multiagent systems with multiple external disturbances and an active leader

This paper investigates the problem of bipartite time-varying formation tracking (BTVFT) for multi-agent systems (MASs) affected by both bounded and linearly parameterized disturbances, under a structurally balanced signed directed topology. An active leader with unknown control input is considered. A distributed robust adaptive control protocol is developed to achieve the desired BTVFT despite the presence of multiple disturbances and unknown leader input. Compared with existing works, the proposed approach accommodates both state-feedback and output-feedback scenarios, handles two distinct types of disturbances without requiring their bounds, and does not assume prior knowledge of the leader’s input. The proposed method improves upon existing works by handling both state and output feedback cases, compensating for two types of disturbances without known bounds, and estimating the leader’s input without prior information. Lyapunov-based analysis is conducted to prove that the tracking error converges asymptotically to zero. Simulation results are provided to validate the theoretical findings and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.