Resilient Distributed Consensus in Multi-Agent Systems: Enhancing Transient Performance Under Communication Link Attacks

This article investigates the resilient cooperative output regulation (RCOR) challenge within a class of nonlinear multi-agent systems (MASs) featuring. The primary focus is on upholding predefined performance criteria, even in the face of potential communication link disruptions. This research addresses the limitations inherent in the tracking accuracy and the characteristics of the transient response of existing cooperative control methodologies for MASs, as well as the vulnerability of their communication frameworks to security threats. To this end, the paper introduces an innovative observer with prescribed performance and a robust control architecture that integrates backstepping and dynamic surface control (DSC) mechanisms, effectively mitigating the impact of communication link attacks. The theoretical robustness of the proposed control framework is substantiated through Lyapunov stability analysis, and the effectiveness is illustrated through an extensive simulation study.