Observer-based Consensus Control for Networked Multi-agent Systems with Delays and Packet-dropouts

This paper is concerned with the issues of observer-based consensus control for a class of networked multi-agent systems with time-varying delays and random packet-dropouts. The distributed multi-agent system whose consensus control protocol is accomplished through a communication network, via which each agent can be remotely controlled, is referred to as networked multi-agent systems (NMAS). Firstly, under a directed graph, a new model of NMAS is established with delays and random packet-dropouts simultaneously considered. Then, a novel Lyapunov-Krasovskii function based on timevarying character of delay is constructed to derive a criterion of exponential stability in mean square for NMAS, from which a quantitative relationship between packet-dropouts probability and consensus condition of multi-agent system is established. By employing this stability criterion, a new observer-based consensus controller in terms of linear inequality matrix (LMI) is proposed to urge each following-agent’s states to reach an agreement on the leader’s state. Finally, simulations are included to demonstrate the theoretical results.