Distributed Fault Detection for A Class of Heterogeneous Agents with Internal Model Controllers

In this paper, we investigate distributed fault detection (FD) problem for a group of heterogeneous agents with internal model controllers. In order to avoid utilizing solutions of complicated matrix equations in the fault detection (FD) module, we design a distributed internal model control law with a state estimator additionally, and design observers for the MAS closed-loop system formed by the designed control law to generate residuals to detect the faulty agent, where the observer feedback information just contains itself and its neighbors’ state and state estimate information, then the utilization of solutions of matrix equations is avoided. Finally, a numerical example is utilized to verify effectiveness of the proposed distributed FD scheme, where the faulty agent will be detected in time, and the designed control law will realize cooperative output regulation (COR) if no fault occurs.