Sampled-Data Connectivity-Preserving Consensus for Multiple Heterogeneous Euler-Lagrange Systems

This paper aims to establish a sampled-data framework to solve the consensus problem for multiple heterogeneous Euler-Lagrange systems (MHELSs). The systems under consideration have heterogeneous dynamics and limited communication range. Different from the existing works, the common requirement of not allowing edge disconnection has been relaxed. Firstly, a sampled-data virtual system is constructed to provide reference trajectory for the actual system. The virtual systems only exchange data at sampling instants, so that connectivity requirement only needs to be satisfied at these moments. Next, a prescribed performance controller is proposed to track the reference trajectory and ensure the systems satisfy the relaxed connectivity requirement. Furthermore, an event-triggered mechanism is developed to reduce the update frequency of the controller. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework, two numerical examples are provided. Note to Practitioners—This paper investigates the connectivity-preserving consensus problem for multiple heterogeneous Euler-Lagrange systems. The Euler-Lagrange system can effectively describe various practical systems, such as autonomous vehicles, robotic manipulators, and walking robots. The integration of virtual and physical systems enables the proposed algorithm to adapt well to heterogeneous multiagent systems. The sampling-data interaction mode of the virtual system ensures a reduction of communication pressure among agents in practice. The design of the direction selector and force limiter effectively maintains reliable communication. The introduction of event-triggering mechanisms reduces the update frequency of physical controllers and lowers the performance requirements of the robot actuators. It is worth mentioning that we relax the connectivity requirement of the topology for the first time. Therefore, it is permissible for the distance between two connected robots to exceed the maximum communication range.