Distributed Estimator-Based Event-Triggered Neuro-Adaptive Control for Leader-Follower Consensus of Strict-Feedback Nonlinear Multiagent Systems

This article investigates the leader-follower consensus problem for strict-feedback nonlinear multiagent systems under a dual-terminal event-triggered mechanism. Compared with the existing event-triggered recursive consensus control design, the primary contribution of this article is the development of a distributed estimator-based event-triggered neuro-adaptive consensus control methodology. In particular, by introducing a dynamic event-triggered communication mechanism without continuous monitoring neighbors' information, a novel distributed event-triggered estimator in chain form is constructed to provide the leader's information to the followers. Subsequently, the distributed estimator is utilized to consensus control via backstepping design. To further decrease information transmission, a neuro-adaptive control and an event-triggered mechanism setting on the control channel are codesigned via the function approximate approach. A theoretical analysis shows that all the closed-loop signals are bounded under the developed control methodology, and the estimation of the tracking error asymptotically converges to zero, i.e., the leader-follower consensus is guaranteed. Finally, simulation studies and comparisons are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control method.

Distributed Fuzzy Optimal Consensus Control of State-Constrained Nonlinear Strict-Feedback Systems

This article investigates the distributed fuzzy optimal consensus control problem for state-constrained nonlinear strict-feedback systems under an identifier-actor-critic architecture. First, a fuzzy identifier is designed to approximate each agent's unknown nonlinear dynamics. Then, by defining multiple barrier-type local optimal performance indexes for each agent, the optimal virtual and actual control laws are obtained, where two fuzzy-logic systems working as the actor network and critic network are used to execute control behavior and evaluate control performance, respectively. It is proved that the proposed control protocol can drive all agents to reach consensus without violating state constraints, and make the local performance indexes reach the Nash equilibrium simultaneously. Simulation studies are given to verify the effectiveness of the developed fuzzy optimal consensus control approach.

Data-Driven Adaptive Consensus Learning From Network Topologies

The problem of consensus learning from network topologies is studied for strongly connected nonlinear nonaffine multiagent systems (MASs). A linear spatial dynamic relationship (LSDR) is built at first to formulate the dynamic I/O relationship between an agent and all the other agents that are communicated through the networked topology. The LSDR consists of a linear parametric uncertain term and a residual nonlinear uncertain term. Utilizing the LSDR, a data-driven adaptive learning consensus protocol (DDALCP) is proposed to learn from both time dynamics of agent itself and spatial dynamics of the whole MAS. The parametric uncertainty and nonlinear uncertainty are estimated through an estimator and an observer respectively to improve robustness. The proposed DDALCP has a strong learning ability to improve the consensus performance because time dynamics and network topology information are both considered. The proposed consensus learning method is data-driven and has no dependence on the system model. The theoretical results are demonstrated by simulations.

Coherence Scaling of Noisy Second-Order Scale-Free Consensus Networks

A striking discovery in the field of network science is that the majority of real networked systems have some universal structural properties. In general, they are simultaneously sparse, scale-free, small-world, and loopy. In this article, we investigate the second-order consensus of dynamic networks with such universal structures subject to white noise at vertices. We focus on the network coherence H_SO characterized in terms of the H₂ -norm of the vertex systems, which measures the mean deviation of vertex states from their average value. We first study numerically the coherence of some representative real-world networks. We find that their coherence H_SO scales sublinearly with the vertex number N . We then study analytically H_SO for a class of iteratively growing networks-pseudofractal scale-free webs (PSFWs), and obtain an exact solution to H_SO, which also increases sublinearly in N , with an exponent much smaller than 1. To explain the reasons for this sublinear behavior, we finally study H_SO for Sierpinśki gaskets, for which H_SO grows superlinearly in N , with a power exponent much larger than 1. Sierpinśki gaskets have the same number of vertices and edges as the PSFWs but do not display the scale-free and small-world properties. We thus conclude that the scale-free, small-world, and loopy topologies are jointly responsible for the observed sublinear scaling of H_SO.

Event-Triggered Extended Kalman Filtering Analysis for Networked Systems

In this paper, the filtering problem of nonlinear networked systems with event-triggered data transmission tasks is studied. To reduce the transmission of excessive measurement data in the bandwidth-limited network, a data transmission mechanism with event trigger is introduced to analyze the error behavior of the extended Kalman filter. We prove that the real estimation error and error covariance matrices can be determined by restricting the initial conditions appropriately. Finally, the effectiveness of the filtering algorithm is verified by simulation.

Fast Approximation of Coherence for Second-Order Noisy Consensus Networks

It has been recently established that for second-order consensus dynamics with additive noise, the performance measures, including the vertex coherence and network coherence defined, respectively, as the steady-state variance of the deviation of each vertex state from the average and the average steady-state variance of the system, are closely related to the biharmonic distances. However, direct computation of biharmonic distances is computationally infeasible for huge networks with millions of vertices. In this article, leveraging the implicit fact that both vertex and network coherence can be expressed in terms of the diagonal entries of pseudoinverse L^2† of the square of graph Laplacian, we develop a nearly linear-time algorithm to approximate all diagonal entries of L^2† , which has a theoretically guaranteed error for each diagonal entry. The key ingredient of our approximation algorithm is an integration of the Johnson-Lindenstrauss lemma and Laplacian solvers. Extensive numerical experiments on real-life and model networks are presented, which indicate that our approximation algorithm is both efficient and accurate and is scalable to large-scale networks with millions of vertices.

Observer-Based Event-Triggered Adaptive Fuzzy Control for Leader-Following Consensus of Nonlinear Strict-Feedback Systems

In this article, the leader-following consensus problem via the event-triggered control technique is studied for the nonlinear strict-feedback systems with unmeasurable states. The follower's nonlinear dynamics is approximated using the fuzzy-logic systems, and the fuzzy weights are updated in a nonperiodic manner. By introducing a fuzzy state observer to reconstruct the system states, an observer-based event-triggered adaptive fuzzy control and a novel event-triggered condition are designed, simultaneously. In addition, the nonzero positive lower bound on interevent intervals is presented to avoid the Zeno behavior. It is proved via an extension of the Lyapunov approach that ultimately bounded control is achieved for the leader-following consensus of the considered multiagent systems. One remarkable advantage of the proposed control protocol is that the control law and fuzzy weights are updated only when the event-triggered condition is violated, which can greatly decrease the data transmission and communication resource. The simulation results are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy and the theoretical analysis.

Finite-Horizon H∞ Fault-Tolerant Constrained Consensus for Multiagent Systems With Communication Delays

This article focuses on the fault-tolerant constrained consensus problem for multiagent systems with communication delays. The communication graphs are first assumed to be directed and fixed. Then, a novel delay-dependent fault-tolerant controller is designed such that, in the presence of communication delays and randomly occurring actuator failures, the influence of the projections and the initial states on the closed-loop system can be attenuated with a prespecified level. Based on the provided performance requirement, the initial state of each agent does not need to be identical. The proposed control algorithms ensure that sufficient conditions are met for the fault-tolerant constrained consensus to be achieved according to the prespecified performance index. After this, the controller gains are computed by employing an iterative linear matrix inequality scheme. Finally, a numerical example is provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Distributed Set-Membership Filtering for Multirate Systems Under the Round-Robin Scheduling Over Sensor Networks

In this paper, the distributed set-membership filtering problem is dealt with for a class of time-varying multirate systems in sensor networks with the communication protocol. For relieving the communication burden, the round-Robin (RR) protocol is exploited to orchestrate the transmission order, under which each sensor node only broadcasts partial information to both the corresponding local filter and its neighboring nodes. In order to meet the practical transmission requirements as well as reduce communication cost, the multirate strategy is proposed to govern the sampling/update rate of the plant, the sensors, and the filters. By means of the lifting technique, the augmented filtering error system is established with a unified sampling rate. The main purpose of the addressed filtering problem is to design a set of distributed filters such that, in the simultaneous presence of the RR transmission protocol, the multirate mechanism, and the bounded noises, there exists a certain ellipsoid that includes all possible error states at each time instant. Then, the desired distributed filter gains are obtained by minimizing such an ellipsoid in the sense of the minimum trace of the weighted matrix. The proposed resource-efficient filtering algorithm is of a recursive form, thereby facilitating the online implementation. A numerical simulation example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed protocol-based distributed filter design method.

Communication cost of consensus for nodes with limited memory

Motivated by applications in wireless networks and the Internet of Things, we consider a model of n nodes trying to reach consensus with high probability on their majority bit. Each node i is assigned a bit at time 0 and is a finite automaton with m bits of memory (i.e., [Formula: see text] states) and a Poisson clock. When the clock of i rings, i can choose to communicate and is then matched to a uniformly chosen node j. The nodes j and i may update their states based on the state of the other node. Previous work has focused on minimizing the time to consensus and the probability of error, while our goal is minimizing the number of communications. We show that, when [Formula: see text], consensus can be reached with linear communication cost, but this is impossible if [Formula: see text] A key step is to distinguish when nodes can become aware of knowing the majority bit and stop communicating. We show that this is impossible if their memory is too low.

Distributed H∞ Filtering for Switched Stochastic Delayed Systems Over Sensor Networks With Fading Measurements

This paper is concerned with the problem of distributed H_∞ filtering for switched stochastic time-delay systems with fading measurements over sensor networks. The underlying target plants are subject to fading measurements where the fading rates are described by continuous-time random variables with known statistical properties dependent on the system modes. The adjacency matrices characterizing the topology of the sensor networks are also allowed to be mode-dependent. Based on the multiple Lyapunov functional approach and average dwell-time concept, the distributed H_∞ filter is designed by means of the convex optimization scheme. A dedicated technique is developed via a simple algebraic equality in order to avoid solving a transcendental equation used in the existing results. With the designed filter, the error dynamics of the state estimation is guaranteed to have the mean-square exponential stability with a prescribed H_∞ disturbance attenuation level. Finally, a numerical example is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method.

Scale-Free Loopy Structure is Resistant to Noise in Consensus Dynamics in Complex Networks

The vast majority of real-world networks are scale-free, loopy, and sparse, with a power-law degree distribution and a constant average degree. In this paper, we study first-order consensus dynamics in binary scale-free networks, where vertices are subject to white noise. We focus on the coherence of networks characterized in terms of the H ₂ -norm, which quantifies how closely the agents track the consensus value. We first provide a lower bound of coherence of a network in terms of its average degree, which is independent of the network order. We then study the coherence of some sparse, scale-free real-world networks, which approaches a constant. We also study numerically the coherence of Barabási-Albert networks and high-dimensional random Apollonian networks, which also converges to a constant when the networks grow. Finally, based on the connection of coherence and the Kirchhoff index, we study analytically the coherence of two deterministically growing sparse networks and obtain the exact expressions, which tend to small constants. Our results indicate that the effect of noise on the consensus dynamics in power-law networks is negligible. We argue that scale-free topology, together with loopy structure, is responsible for the strong robustness with respect to noisy consensus dynamics in power-law networks.

Consensus in Self-Similar Hierarchical Graphs and Sierpiński Graphs: Convergence Speed, Delay Robustness, and Coherence

The hierarchical graphs and Sierpiński graphs are constructed iteratively, which have the same number of vertices and edges at any iteration, but exhibit quite different structural properties: the hierarchical graphs are nonfractal and small-world, while the Sierpiński graphs are fractal and "large-world." Both graphs have found broad applications. In this paper, we study consensus problems in hierarchical graphs and Sierpiński graphs, focusing on three important quantities of consensus problems, that is, convergence speed, delay robustness, and coherence for first-order (and second-order) dynamics, which are, respectively, determined by algebraic connectivity, maximum eigenvalue, and sum of reciprocal (and square of reciprocal) of each nonzero eigenvalue of Laplacian matrix. For both graphs, based on the explicit recursive relation of eigenvalues at two successive iterations, we evaluate the second smallest eigenvalue, as well as the largest eigenvalue, and obtain the closed-form solutions to the sum of reciprocals (and square of reciprocals) of all nonzero eigenvalues. We also compare our obtained results for consensus problems on both graphs and show that they differ in all quantities concerned, which is due to the marked difference of their topological structures.

Group consensus control for networked multi-agent systems with communication delays

This paper investigates group consensus problems in networked multi-agent systems (NMAS) with communication delays. Based on the sed state prediction scheme, the group consensus control protocol is designed to compensate the communication delay actively. In light of algebraic graph theories and matrix theories, necessary and(or) sufficient conditions of group consensus with respect to a given admissible control set are obtained for the NMAS with communication delays under mild assumptions. Finally, simulations are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.

Distributed ESO based cooperative tracking control for high-order nonlinear multiagent systems with lumped disturbance and application in multi flight simulators systems

Based on extended state observer, a novel and practical design method is developed to solve the distributed cooperative tracking problem of higher-order nonlinear multiagent systems with lumped disturbance in a fixed communication topology directed graph. The proposed method is designed to guarantee all the follower nodes ultimately and uniformly converge to the leader node with bounded residual errors. The leader node, modeled as a higher-order non-autonomous nonlinear system, acts as a command generator giving commands only to a small portion of the networked follower nodes. Extended state observer is used to estimate the local states and lumped disturbance of each follower node. Moreover, each distributed controller can work independently only requiring the relative states and/or the estimated relative states information between itself and its neighbors. Finally an engineering application of multi flight simulators systems is demonstrated to test and verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Adaptive Fuzzy Bounded Control for Consensus of Multiple Strict-Feedback Nonlinear Systems

This paper studies the adaptive fuzzy bounded control problem for leader-follower multiagent systems, where each follower is modeled by the uncertain nonlinear strict-feedback system. Combining the fuzzy approximation with the dynamic surface control, an adaptive fuzzy control scheme is developed to guarantee the output consensus of all agents under directed communication topologies. Different from the existing results, the bounds of the control inputs are known as a priori, and they can be determined by the feedback control gains. To realize smooth and fast learning, a predictor is introduced to estimate each error surface, and the corresponding predictor error is employed to learn the optimal fuzzy parameter vector. It is proved that the developed adaptive fuzzy control scheme guarantees the uniformly ultimate boundedness of the closed-loop systems, and the tracking error converges to a small neighborhood of the origin. The simulation results and comparisons are provided to show the validity of the control strategy presented in this paper.

Distributed Finite-Time Cooperative Control of Multiple High-Order Nonholonomic Mobile Robots

The consensus problem of multiple nonholonomic mobile robots in the form of high-order chained structure is considered in this paper. Based on the model features and the finite-time control technique, a finite-time cooperative controller is explicitly constructed which guarantees that the states consensus is achieved in a finite time. As an application of the proposed results, finite-time formation control of multiple wheeled mobile robots is studied and a finite-time formation control algorithm is proposed. To show effectiveness of the proposed approach, a simulation example is given.

Analyses of integrated aircraft cabin contaminant monitoring network based on Kalman consensus filter

The modern civil aircrafts use air ventilation pressurized cabins subject to the limited space. In order to monitor multiple contaminants and overcome the hypersensitivity of the single sensor, the paper constructs an output correction integrated sensor configuration using sensors with different measurement theories after comparing to other two different configurations. This proposed configuration works as a node in the contaminant distributed wireless sensor monitoring network. The corresponding measurement error models of integrated sensors are also proposed by using the Kalman consensus filter to estimate states and conduct data fusion in order to regulate the single sensor measurement results. The paper develops the sufficient proof of the Kalman consensus filter stability when considering the system and the observation noises and compares the mean estimation and the mean consensus errors between Kalman consensus filter and local Kalman filter. The numerical example analyses show the effectiveness of the algorithm.

Consensus Control of Nonlinear Multiagent Systems With Time-Varying State Constraints

In this paper, we present a novel adaptive consensus algorithm for a class of nonlinear multiagent systems with time-varying asymmetric state constraints. As such, our contribution is a step forward beyond the usual consensus stabilization result to show that the states of the agents remain within a user defined, time-varying bound. To prove our new results, the original multiagent system is transformed into a new one. Stabilization and consensus of transformed states are sufficient to ensure the consensus of the original networked agents without violating of the predefined asymmetric time-varying state constraints. A single neural network (NN), whose weights are tuned online, is used in our design to approximate the unknown functions in the agent's dynamics. To account for the NN approximation residual, reconstruction error, and external disturbances, a robust term is introduced into the approximating system equation. Additionally in our design, each agent only exchanges the information with its neighbor agents, and thus the proposed consensus algorithm is decentralized. The theoretical results are proved via Lyapunov synthesis. Finally, simulations are performed on a nonlinear multiagent system to illustrate the performance of our consensus design scheme.

Distributed Bounds on the Algebraic Connectivity of Graphs With Application to Agent Networks

This paper establishes several bounds on the algebraic connectivity and spectral radius of graphs. Before deriving these bounds, a directed graph with a leader node is first investigated, for which some bounds on the spectral radius and the smallest real part of all the eigenvalues of M = L + D are obtained using the properties of M-matrix and non-negative matrix under a mild assumption, where L is the Laplacian matrix of the graph and D = diag{d1, d2, ..., dN} with di > 0 if node i can access the information of the leader node and 0 otherwise. Subsequently, by virtue of the results on directed graphs, the bounds on the algebraic connectivity and spectral radius of an undirected connected graph are provided. Besides establishing these bounds, another important feature is that all these bounds are distributed in the sense of only knowing the information of edge weights' bounds and the number of nodes in a graph, without using any information of inherent structures of the graph. Therefore, these bounds can be in some sense applied to agent networks for reducing the conservatism where control gains in control protocols depend on the eigenvalues of matrices M or L, which are global information. Also some examples are provided for corroborating the feasibility of the theoretical results.

A Layered Event-Triggered Consensus Scheme

This paper studies the dynamics of multiagent systems with a multilayer structure, proposing a novel layered event-triggered scheme (LETS) for consensus. This LETS emphasizes on synchronous information transmission in the same layer but asynchronous message update between different layers, which differs from the existing centralized or distributed event-triggered schemes. Moreover, under the LETS, agents in different layers achieve asymptotical consensus eventually and the Zeno behavior is successfully eliminated. Furthermore, an algorithm is provided to avoid continuous event detection, verified by a numerical example.

Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Consensus of Fractional-Order Multiagent Systems via Sampled-Data Control

In this paper, the consensus of fractional-order multiagent systems (FOMASs) is considered via sampled-data control over directed communication topology with the order 0 <; α <; 1. Two cases are considered. One is FOMASs without leader, and the other is FOMASs with a leader. For each case, by applying matrix theory and algebraic graph theory, some algebraic-type necessary and sufficient conditions based on the sampling period, the fractional-order, the coupling gain, and the structure of the network are established for achieving consensus of the system. Moreover, for the network with a dynamic leader, the sampling period, the coupling gain, and the spectrum of the Laplacian matrix are carefully devised, respectively. Finally, several simulation examples are employed to validate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.

Energy-Efficient Distributed Filtering in Sensor Networks: A Unified Switched System Approach

This paper is concerned with the energy-efficient distributed filtering in sensor networks, and a unified switched system approach is proposed to achieve this goal. For the system under study, the measurement is first sampled under nonuniform sampling periods, then the local measurement elements are selected and quantized for transmission. Then, the transmission rate is further reduced to save constrained power in sensors. Based on the switched system approach, a unified model is presented to capture the nonuniform sampling, the measurement size reduction, the transmission rate reduction, the signal quantization, and the measurement missing phenomena. Sufficient conditions are obtained such that the filtering error system is exponentially stable in the mean-square sense with a prescribed H∞ performance level. Both simulation and experiment studies are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed new design technique.

Adaptive fuzzy wavelet network control of second order multi-agent systems with unknown nonlinear dynamics

In this paper, consensus problem is considered for second order multi-agent systems with unknown nonlinear dynamics under undirected graphs. A novel distributed control strategy is suggested for leaderless systems based on adaptive fuzzy wavelet networks. Adaptive fuzzy wavelet networks are employed to compensate for the effect of unknown nonlinear dynamics. Moreover, the proposed method is developed for leader following systems and leader following systems with state time delays. Lyapunov functions are applied to prove uniformly ultimately bounded stability of closed loop systems and to obtain adaptive laws. Three simulation examples are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithms.

Observer-Based Adaptive Backstepping Consensus Tracking Control for High-Order Nonlinear Semi-Strict-Feedback Multiagent Systems

Combined with backstepping techniques, an observer-based adaptive consensus tracking control strategy is developed for a class of high-order nonlinear multiagent systems, of which each follower agent is modeled in a semi-strict-feedback form. By constructing the neural network-based state observer for each follower, the proposed consensus control method solves the unmeasurable state problem of high-order nonlinear multiagent systems. The control algorithm can guarantee that all signals of the multiagent system are semi-globally uniformly ultimately bounded and all outputs can synchronously track a reference signal to a desired accuracy. A simulation example is carried out to further demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed consensus control method.

Impulsive Multiconsensus of Second-Order Multiagent Networks Using Sampled Position Data

A multiconsensus problem of multiagent networks is solved in this paper, where multiconsensus refers to that the states of multiple agents in each subnetwork asymptotically converge to an individual consistent value when there exist information exchanges among subnetworks. A distributed impulsive protocol is proposed to achieve multiconsensus of second-order multiagent networks in terms of three categories: 1) stationary multiconsensus; 2) the first dynamic multiconsensus; and 3) the second dynamic multiconsensus. This impulsive protocol utilizes only sampled position data and is implemented at sampling instants. For those three categories of multiconsensus, the control parameters in the impulsive protocol are designed, respectively. Moreover, necessary and sufficient conditions are derived, under which each multiconsensus can be reached asymptotically. Several simulations are finally provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical results.

Second-order global consensus in multiagent networks with random directional link failure

In this paper, we consider the second-order globally nonlinear consensus in a multiagent network with general directed topology and random interconnection failure by characterizing the behavior of stochastic dynamical system with the corresponding time-averaged system. A criterion for the second-order consensus is derived by constructing a Lyapunov function for the time-averaged network. By associating the solution of random switching nonlinear system with the constructed Lyapunov function, a sufficient condition for second-order globally nonlinear consensus in a multiagent network with random directed interconnections is also established. It is required that the second-order consensus can be achieved in the time-averaged network and the Lyapunov function decreases along the solution of the random switching nonlinear system at an infinite subsequence of the switching moments. A numerical example is presented to justify the correctness of the theoretical results.

Distributed soft-data-constrained multi-model particle filter

A distributed nonlinear estimation method based on soft-data-constrained multimodel particle filtering and applicable to a number of distributed state estimation problems is proposed. This method needs only local data exchange among neighboring sensor nodes and thus provides enhanced reliability, scalability, and ease of deployment. To make the multimodel particle filtering work in a distributed manner, a Gaussian approximation of the particle cloud obtained at each sensor node and a consensus propagation-based distributed data aggregation scheme are used to dynamically reweight the particles' weights. The proposed method can recover from failure situations and is robust to noise, since it keeps the same population of particles and uses the aggregated global Gaussian to infer constraints. The constraints are enforced by adjusting particles' weights and assigning a higher mass to those closer to the global estimate represented by the nodes in the entire sensor network after each communication step. Each sensor node experiences gradual change; i.e., if a noise occurs in the system, the node, its neighbors, and consequently the overall network are less affected than with other approaches, and thus recover faster. The efficiency of the proposed method is verified through extensive simulations for a target tracking system which can process both soft and hard data in sensor networks.

Synchronization on complex networks of networks

In this paper, pinning synchronization on complex networks of networks is investigated, where there are many subnetworks with the interactions among them. The subnetworks and their connections can be regarded as the nodes and interactions of the networks, respectively, which form the networks of networks. In this new setting, the aim is to design pinning controllers on the chosen nodes of each subnetwork so as to reach synchronization behavior. Some synchronization criteria are established for reaching pinning control on networks of networks. Furthermore, the pinning scheme is designed, which shows that the nodes with very low degrees and large degrees are good candidates for applying pinning controllers. Then, the attack and robustness of the pinning scheme are discussed. Finally, a simulation example is presented to verify the theoretical analysis in this paper.