Distributed Affine Formation Control of Linear Multi-agent Systems with Adaptive Event-triggering

TL;DR

This paper introduces a distributed affine formation control method for linear multi-agent systems using adaptive event-triggered schemes, reducing communication needs while ensuring effective formation and transformation control.

Contribution

It develops an adaptive event-triggered control protocol for affine formation control that operates without global information and includes an output-based solution for partial state availability.

Findings

Effective formation control with reduced communication

Successful affine transformations in simulations

Feasibility of event-triggered mechanism demonstrated

Abstract

Concerning general multi-agent systems with limited communication, this paper proposes distributed formation control protocols under adaptive event-triggered schemes to operate affine transformations of nominal formations. To accommodate more practical system mechanics, we develop an event-triggered controller that drives the leader to a desired state by bringing in the compensation term. Based on triggering instants' state information, an affine formation control method with adaptive event-triggering is designed for each follower, making the whole protocol effective in refraining from successive communication while not relying on predefined global information. In particular, mitigating the effect of partial state availability, an output-based control solution is presented to expand the protocol's serviceable range. Finally, we perform numerical simulations on the formation and its affine transformations to verify the effectiveness of the control protocol and the feasibility of the event-triggered mechanism.