Observer-based prescribed-time formation tracking of second-order multi-agent systems under event-triggered mechanism

In this paper, the problem of the observer-based event-triggered formation is investigated for second-order multi-agent systems to achieve prescribed-time leader-follower formation tracking. First, considering that the leader’s states are only available to part of the followers, a novel prescribed-time distributed observer with event-triggered mechanism is constructed to estimate the states of the leader. Compared to the existing prescribed-time state observers, the event-triggered mechanism is used to reduce the communication frequency and load. Then, a state observer-based prescribed-time control scheme with an event-triggered mechanism is proposed to achieve leader-follower formation tracking. The designed control system saves communication and energy resources while achieving fast convergence. Besides, a hybrid event-triggered mechanism is proposed for more convenient verification on the Zeno-free behavior, and a theoretical discussion is given. Simulations validates the effectiveness of the proposed control system.