Adaptive Selective Disturbance Elimination-Based Fixed-Time Consensus Tracking for a Class of Nonlinear Multiagent Systems

This paper addresses the problem of fixed-time consensus tracking for a class of nonlinear multiagent systems (MASs) with disturbances. We establish a novel fixed-time consensus tracking protocol with adaptive disturbance rejection capabilities, leveraging adaptive selective disturbance elimination (ASDE) technology. This protocol consists of a distributed fixed-time observer (DFTO), a fixed-time disturbance observer (FTDO), and an adaptive selective disturbance elimination backstepping controller (ASDE) with adaptive lumped disturbance compensation abilities. The DFTO estimates the leader’s output using the communication network topology of each follower, while the FTDO rapidly observes the lumped disturbances and their derivatives. By adding disturbance indicator terms and disturbance observation attenuation terms to the control law, the beneficial and harmful effects of disturbance are distinguished. Under favorable disturbance conditions, lumped disturbances can be used to accelerate tracking speed. If disturbances are harmful, they are adaptively compensated to improve tracking accuracy. Furthermore, the fixed-time stability of each part of the protocol is analyzed using Lyapunov theory. Simulation results show that, under different initial states and command inputs, the proposed method achieves faster convergence and smaller tracking errors compared to the adaptive conditional disturbance negaton backstepping controller (ACDN), conditional disturbance negation backstepping controller (CDN), and non-smooth backstepping controller (NBCDC), verifying the effectiveness of the proposed method. The research outcomes serve as a reference for future multiagent adaptive anti-disturbance cooperative control technology.