Finite-time consensus of heterogeneous unmanned aerial agents in network with fixed and switching topology

A finite-time consensus protocol is presented in this paper for a network of connected heterogeneous agents with fixed and switching topology. In this study, two cases directed networks with fixed topology and directed networks with switching topology are examined. Convergence analysis for both the cases are presented. An independent tracking controller, which assures that an agent follows an ideal trajectory designed by sliding mode based consensus control, is devised. Agents stability are independent of the distributed consensus algorithm. Under the proposed control methodology, the measurement vectors of heterogeneous agents converge to the agreement value in a finite amount of time. The comparison results with the existing works show the proposed algorithm’s improved performance in terms of convergence time in presence of disturbances.