Distributed Observers Design for Leader-Following Control of Multi-Agent Networks (Extended Version)

TL;DR

This paper develops distributed observers and control strategies for multi-agent systems to follow a leader with switching topology, ensuring convergence and robustness even in noisy environments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel distributed observer design for second-order agents with switching networks, using a common Lyapunov function for stability proof.

Findings

Agents successfully track the leader in simulations.

The proposed method maintains performance under noisy conditions.

Explicit Lyapunov function guarantees convergence.

Abstract

This paper is concerned with a leader-follower problem for a multi-agent system with a switching interconnection topology. Distributed observers are designed for the second-order follower-agents, under the common assumption that the velocity of the active leader cannot be measured in real time. Some dynamic neighbor-based rules, consisting of distributed controllers and observers for the autonomous agents, are developed to keep updating the information of the leader. With the help of an explicitly constructed common Lyapunov function (CLF), it is proved that each agent can follow the active leader. Moreover, the tracking error is estimated even in a noisy environment. Finally, a numerical example is given for illustration.