Containment control of fully heterogeneous linear multi-agent systems with switching topologies

Abstract

This paper studies the containment control problems for fully heterogeneous multi-agent systems (HMASs) with switching topologies, where both the leaders and the followers have different dynamics. Firstly, a distributed observer is constructed for each follower to estimate the states of all the non-identical leaders using the neighboring interaction. Then, based on the estimated states of the multiple leaders, an output containment control protocol is proposed for HMASs using the output regulation strategy, where several predefined weights are applied for the followers to specify the desired convex combinations of the leaders. Thus, the given containment format is independent of the interaction topology. In light of the common Lyapunov stability and output regulation theory, it is proved that the desired output containment can be realized by fully HMASs under the influences of switching topologies. Finally, a simulation example is provided to verify the effectiveness of the theoretical results.