Resilient Output Containment Over Heterogeneous Wide-Area Networks: Mitigating Intermittent Communication and Unknown Cyber-Attacks

This study investigates the resilient output containment problem in heterogeneous multiagent systems that facing intermittent communication and sensor attacks, specifically focusing deception attacks within wide-area networks (WANs). A novel WAN framework is introduced to effectively analyze the intricate nature of the network. The proposed framework facilitates the examination of connected agents across multiple scenarios to achieve the desired containment objective. The framework involves three key steps. First, a distributed hybrid control strategy is developed, utilizing an internal model to handle intermittent communication between clusters and continuous communication within clusters. Second, considering the unknown states of compromised heterogeneous agents, a Luenberger observer is devised for each agent, employing adaptive observers to estimate the state and external attack information. Subsequently, a distributed hybrid controller is proposed to achieve global output containment, ensuring uniform ultimate boundedness. Additionally, a sufficient condition for exponential stability is derived to tackle the intermittent control problem. This criterion employs the characterization of average intermittent intervals. The effectiveness of the proposed adaptive hybrid control strategy is demonstrated through simulation examples, showcasing its ability to address the challenges posed by intermittent communication and deception attacks.