Consensus of second order multi-agents with actuator saturation and asynchronous time-delays

TL;DR

This paper investigates the consensus behavior of second-order multi-agent systems with actuator saturation, asynchronous delays, and nonlinearities, providing stability analysis, control laws, and validation through simulations and hardware tests.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive stability analysis framework for saturated second-order multi-agent systems with asynchronous delays, combining Lyapunov-Krasovskii and frequency domain methods.

Findings

Stability conditions for multi-agent consensus with actuator saturation.

Comparison of Lyapunov-Krasovskii and frequency domain analysis methods.

Validation through simulations and hardware implementation.

Abstract

This article presents the consensus of a saturated second order multi-agent system with non-switching dynamics that can be represented by a directed graph. The system is affected by data processing (input delay) and communication time-delays that are assumed to be asynchronous. The agents have saturation nonlinearities, each of them is approximated into separate linear and nonlinear elements. Nonlinear elements are represented by describing functions. Describing functions and stability of linear elements are used to estimate the existence of limit cycles in the system with multiple control laws. Stability analysis of the linear element is performed using Lyapunov-Krasovskii functions and frequency domain analysis. A comparison of pros and cons of both the analyses with respect to time-delay ranges, applicability and computation complexity is presented. Simulation and corresponding hardware implementation results are demonstrated to support theoretical results.