Finite-Time Consensus Tracking for Incommensurate Fractional-Order Nonlinear Multiagent Systems With Directed Switching Topologies

This article investigates the problem of finite-time consensus tracking for incommensurate fractional-order nonlinear multiagent systems (MASs) with general directed switching topology. For the leader with bounded but arbitrary dynamics, a neighborhood-based saturated observer is first designed to guarantee that the observer’s state converges to the leader’s state in finite time. By utilizing a fuzzy-logic system to approximate the heterogeneous and unmodeled nonlinear dynamics, an observer-based adaptive parameter control protocol is designed to solve the problem of finite-time consensus tracking of incommensurate fractional-order nonlinear MASs on directed switching topology with a restricted dwell time. Then, the derived result is further extended to the case of directed switching topology without a restricted dwell time by designing an observer-based adaptive gain control protocol. By artfully choosing a piecewise Lyapunov function, it is shown that the consensus tracking error converges to a small adjustable residual set in finite time for both the cases with and without a restricted dwell time. It should be noted that the proposed adaptive gain consensus tracking protocol is completely distributed in the sense that there is no need for any global information. The effectiveness of the proposed consensus tracking scheme is illustrated by numerical simulations.