Distributed Control of Multiagent Systems under Unknown Persistent Disturbances

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new control method for multiagent systems that ensures consensus and formation objectives are achieved despite unknown persistent disturbances, by integrating an integral action based on local error projections.

Contribution

A novel controller design combining existing algorithms with an integral action based on local error projections to handle unknown persistent disturbances in multiagent systems.

Findings

Achieves consensus and formation under disturbances

Proven stability of the proposed control architecture

Validated with illustrative examples

Abstract

This paper focuses on the consensus and formation problems of multiagent systems under unknown persistent disturbances. Specifically, we propose a novel method that combines an existing consensus (or formation) algorithm with a new controller. The new controller has an integral action that produces a control input based on an error signal locally projected onto the column space of the graph Laplacian. This action allows agents to achieve a consensus or a predetermined formation objective under constant or time-varying disturbances. This study has analyzed the stability properties of this architecture and provides several illustrative examples to demonstrate the proposed approach.