Leader-Following Consensus With Prescribed Time-Bound and Order of Multiagent Systems With Increasing Scales: A Chain-Patterned Approach.

A chain-patterned approach is proposed to achieve the novel leader-following consensus (LFC) with prescribed time-bound and order for MAS under directed chain interaction with increasing scales. Using chain-patterned polynomial encodings, this approach confines all effects of scale variation, thereby accommodating increasing scales without requiring prior knowledge of every interaction at all open moments, like the existing studies. Moreover, TBBG are embedded in this approach to guarantee the novel LFC with prescribed time and bound, while avoiding the infinity-approaching time-varying parameters. Furthermore, the important property order is further enforced and obtained under the proposed approach, conforming to the unidirectional information flow characteristic of chains. Finally, the validity and superiority of the proposed chain-patterned approach are demonstrated by comparative examples.