Fuzzy Cooperative Output Regulation for Open Nonlinear Multiagent Systems

In this article, the cooperative output regulation problem is investigated for heterogeneous nonlinear multiagent systems allowing frequent arrivals and departures of agents. Inspired by generally switched systems with multimodes and multidimensions, the migration of agents is described by a switched communication network, where the number of agents and the graph of topology could be simultaneously changed at the switching instant. In this article, this switching topology is modeled as a quasi-mode-dependent persistent dwell-time switched system with size-varying modes for more generalization. Furthermore, the assumption of existing a directed spanning tree can be removed during the special time interval with a limit on the maximum dwell time, which makes the stability analysis for such switching directed topology more challenging. Hence, a quasi-time-dependent Lyapunov function is utilized to construct a novel distributed reference generator, which can approach the exosystem in a globally uniformly exponential manner, and based on the Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy set theory, a fuzzy cooperative controller is developed for each agent to track the estimating signal. Finally, a multipendulum system is adopted to illustrate the feasibility and applicability of the derived results.