A Novel Fixed-Time Protocol for First-Order Consensus Tracking With Disturbance Rejection

This technical note studies fixed-time consensus tracking with disturbance rejection for first-order multiagent systems. The communication topology among the leader and followers contains a directed spanning tree. The control input to the leader is time-varying and unknown to the followers, except that its upper bound is known
a priori
. A novel fixed-time protocol is devised based on discontinuous and nonlinear control. A fixed-time stability analysis for consensus tracking with disturbance rejection is completed as a one-step control process using nonsmooth analysis. An upper bound estimate for the settling time, independent of the initial conditions, is aesthetically pleasing, in comparison to previous results derived based on two-step control design technique using sliding modes. Finally, a numeric example confirms the theoretical results.