Distributed Observers for LTI Systems With Finite Convergence Time: A Parameter-Estimation-Based Approach

A novel approach to solve the problem of distributed state estimation of linear time-invariant systems is proposed in this article. It relies on the application of parameter-estimation-based observers, where the state observation task is reformulated as a parameter estimation problem. In contrast with existing results, our solution achieves convergence in finite time, without injection of high gain, and imposes very weak assumptions on the communication graph—namely, the existence of an open Hamiltonian walk. It is shown that this assumption is strictly weaker than the usual strong connectivity requirement. The scheme is shown to be robust
vis-á-vis
external disturbances and communication delays.