Adaptive Fault-tolerant Control of Uncertain Multi-agent Systems via a Distributed Observer

Abstract

In this paper, a novel adaptive distributed observer is designed for a multi-agent nonlinear system firstly, which can estimate of the leader's signal to followers. A fault-tolerant controller based on the observer is further designed to solve leader-following cooperative tracking problem, which subject to discontinuous partial loss of actuator effectiveness (DPLOAE) faults and unknown external disturbances, and the tracking errors can converge to zero asymptotically. Finally, examples are provided to display the usefulness of the fault-tolerant controller. This controller provides three advantages in that it solves the problem of communication barriers by the adaptive distributed observer, and the controller designed in this study can be applied to the control of both non-fault and fault occurrence, avoiding the reorganization of the controller structure after the fault occurs.