An Output-Feedback Control Approach to the $H_{\infty}$ Consensus Integrated with Transient Performance Improvement Problem

TL;DR

This paper develops observer-based control protocols for networked linear agents to achieve consensus with improved transient and $H_{}$ disturbance performance over switching topologies, validated through helicopter simulations.

Contribution

It introduces both full-order and reduced-order observer-based control protocols for consensus, enhancing transient and disturbance performance in switching networks.

Findings

Protocols guarantee asymptotic consensus without disturbances.

Protocols achieve $H_{}$ performance and transient improvement with disturbances.

Numerical simulations confirm theoretical results on helicopter networks.

Abstract

This paper considers the consensus performance improvement problem of networked general linear agents subject to external disturbances over Markovian randomly switching communication topologies. The consensus control laws can only use its local output information. Firstly, a class of full-order observer-based control protocols is proposed to solve this problem, which depends solely on the relative outputs of neighbours. Then, to eliminate the redundancy involved in the full-order observer, a class of reduced-order observer-based control protocols is designed. Algorithms to construct both protocols are presented, which guarantee that agents can reach consensus in the asymptotic mean square sense when they are not perturbed by disturbances, and that they have decent $H_{\infty}$ performance and transient performance when the disturbances exist. At the end of this manuscript, numerical simulations which apply both algorithms to four networked Raptor-90 helicopters are performed to verify the theoretical results.