Observer-based consensus tracking for nonlinear multi-agent systems with intermittent communication

This paper addresses the observer-based consensus tracking problem of multi-agent systems with intermittent communication constraints. The agent dynamics is modeled as general linear system attached the Lipschitz-type nonlinear term. Since in reality communications among mobile agents are intermittent, a class of non-continuous observer-type protocol is proposed based on each agent only intermittently sharing relative outputs with neighbors. By virtue of the matrix theory, the switching system theory and the averaging approach, a multi-step protocol design procedure is presented, and the sufficient condition is further derived to ensure the observer-based consensus tracking. Finally, the theoretical findings are validated by a numerical example.