Observer-Based Containment Control for Multiagent Systems by a Node-Based Hybrid Triggering Mechanism

This article considers the observer-based containment control problem of multiagent systems (MASs), with a focus on the scenario where the control task only utilizes intermittent communication among agents and from the sensor to the local state observer. To deal with this problem, we propose a hybrid triggering control strategy, which includes two parts. First, a local observer for each follower is proposed to estimate state under a time-triggered mechanism (TTM). Second, based on local observer, a fully distributed containment controller is proposed under a node-based hybrid triggering mechanism (HTM), which does not require global information. Note that such HTM includes a TTM and a dynamic event-triggered mechanism (DETM). The most significant merit of this article is that the TTM is developed to provide the guarantee of the positive minimum triggering interval time (MTIT) between two triggering actions, which is more desirable than simply excluding Zeno behavior in practical applications. Finally, a simulation example on containment of nonholonomic mobile robots illustrates the control strategy. Note to Practitioners—The observer-based containment control issue of multiagent systems (MASs) is addressed under hybrid triggering communication, which can be implemented in many practical control systems. In general, each agent often has only limited communication resources in engineering applications. Besides, owing to high cost or great difficulty, the full state information of each agent is not always measurable in some situations. Considering that unmeasurable state and limited communication resources, we propose an observer-based hybrid triggering control strategy, which can trigger the observer and the controller, respectively. Thus, the sensor and communication burdens can be significantly reduced. Note that the guarantee of the positive minimum triggering interval time (MTIT) makes the method more suitable for real-world applications than traditional event-triggered protocols. In simulations, the control strategy is illustrated by a practical example on containment of nonholonomic mobile robots.