Adaptive cooperating fault-tolerant formation control for multi-agent systems with double Markovian switching topologies and actuator faults

This paper is concerned with adaptive time-varying formation tracking problems of multi-agent systems (MASs) with uncertain communication networks, non-parametric actuator faults and matched and mismatched uncertainties/disturbances. Considering the leader–follower structure of the MAS and the complex working environment, the communication networks are unstationary, for which, a double Markov process is first introduced to characterize this topology. A stochastic sliding surface is designed for each follower, and the stability of the corresponding sliding mode dynamics is analyzed. An adaptive sliding mode controller is developed to drive the dynamical system to the sliding surface in finite time and maintains a sliding motion thereafter. The stability of the corresponding sliding mode and the reachability are proved via Lyapunov direct method. Finally, a simulation example of three unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and one unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.