Group consensus for heterogeneous multi-agent systems with parametric uncertainties

In this paper, a group consensus problem is investigated for the heterogeneous agents that are governed by the Euler–Lagrange system and the double-integrator system, respectively, and the parameters of the Euler–Lagrange system are uncertain. To achieve group consensus, a novel group consensus protocol and a time-varying estimator of the uncertain parameters are proposed. By combining algebraic graph theory with the Barbalat lemma, several effective sufficient conditions are obtained. It is found that the timedelay group consensus can be achieved provided that the inner coupling matrices are equal in the different sub-networks. Besides, the switching topologies between homogeneous agents are also considered, with the help of the Barbalat-like lemma, and some relevant results are also obtained. Finally, these theoretical results are demonstrated by the numerical simulations. & 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.