Leader-Following Consensus of Linear Multiagent Systems With Aperiodically Sampled Outputs: A Distributed Impulsive-Observer-Based Approach

This article studies the leader-following consensus problem for a class of linear multiagent systems over a directed graph with aperiodically sampled outputs. First, a novel distributed impulsive-observer-based consensus protocol is designed. This protocol requires only the output measurements at sporadic time instants for the observer and control gain design. Second, by using time-varying Lyapunov function techniques, sufficient conditions for exponential stability of a class of linear impulsive systems are established; subsequently, these stability results are applied for the distributed impulsive observer design. Different from the existing related works, the impulsive observer gain designed in this work is decoupled from the graph properties. As a result, once the impulsive observer gain is designed for one network topology, it can be directly used for other network topologies, as long as the graph properties and the dynamics of local agents satisfy certain conditions. Furthermore, the resilience of the designed protocol is tested under denial of service (DoS) attacks. It is shown that the protocol is robust with respect to low-frequency DoS attacks occurring in the observer communication network. Finally, two examples illustrating the validity and effectiveness of the proposed protocol are included.