Integral Sliding Mode Strategy for Robust Consensus of Networked Higher Order Uncertain Non Linear Systems

This paper focuses on an integral sliding mode technique-based consensus control protocol design for networked high order uncertain nonlinear systems. The nonlinear agents (nodes), which comprises of a leader and followers are networked via a fixed topology with a directed graph. A consensus among the leader and followers is achieved by first defining consensus error dynamics and then an integral manifold based distributed control protocols are designed. These distributed protocols steer the respective consensus error dynamics to equilibrium even in the presence of uncertainties. The robustness is achieved from the very start of the process by enforcing sliding mode at the initial time instant. The sliding mode enforcement and the closed loop stability analysis are presented in the form of a theorem. The theoretical results are verified via the simulation results of a numerical example.