Adaptive Leader-Following Consensus for a Class of Higher-Order Nonlinear Multi-Agent Systems with Directed Switching Networks

TL;DR

This paper develops an adaptive control approach for achieving leader-following consensus in uncertain nonlinear multi-agent systems with directed switching networks, ensuring exponential convergence.

Contribution

It extends adaptive distributed observer results to exponential convergence and integrates it with adaptive control for nonlinear agents.

Findings

Achieved global exponential convergence of the observer.

Successfully applied the method to van der Pol oscillators.

Demonstrated effectiveness in directed switching network scenarios.

Abstract

In this paper, we study the leader-following consensus problem for a class of uncertain nonlinear multi-agent systems under jointly connected directed switching networks. The uncertainty includes constant unbounded parameters and external disturbances. We first extend the recent result on the adaptive distributed observer from global asymptotical convergence to global exponential convergence. Then, by integrating the conventional adaptive control technique with the adaptive distributed observer, we present our solution by a distributed adaptive state feedback control law. Our result is illustrated by the leader-following consensus problem for a group of van der Pol oscillators.