A dynamic event-triggered approach for observer-based formation control of multi-agent systems with designable inter-event time

Abstract

This paper addresses the leader-following formation control problems for generic linear multi-agent systems under directed topology with designable inter-event time. A synthesis approach combining controller and observer design is developed under a dynamic event-triggered communication and control scheme. The proposed feedback control, state estimation, and event-triggered rules are distributed, and only local information is required for each agent to implement these algorithms. The proposed dynamic event-triggered protocol incorporates model-based estimation and clock-like auxiliary dynamic variables to prolong the inter-event time and economize the network resources. Furthermore, the inter-event time is designable, which allows more flexible tuning of communication frequency with only minor performance degradation. Sufficient conditions for formation control are established by linear matrix inequalities. The proposed method exhibits significant improvement over the dynamic event-triggered control methods described in the existing literature. Compared to the existing static event-triggered strategy, the proposed approach significantly reduces the utilization of communication resources while preserving asymptotic convergence to the desired formation. Comparative simulations demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the proposed theoretical results.