Formation Tracking Control of Nonlinear Multi-Agent System with Switching Topology

This paper delves into the realm of time-varying formation tracking control for multi-agent systems characterized by single-sided Lipschitz nonlinearities and subject to switching topologies. The virtual leader has control inputs that are used to assign arbitrary trajectories to the multi-agent system to steer the system towards the desired formation goal. An adaptive control protocol based on state observer and neighbor node information is designed. Specifically, the protocol is able to estimate the global state of the system from the local information of the neighboring nodes and dynamically adjust the control inputs of the individual agents according to these estimates. The nonlinear system can achieve the expectation time-varying formation tracking even if the complete state is not obtained. At the same time, global information such as leader input upper bound and Laplace matrix eigenvalues are not required under the proposed adaptive protocol, which reduces the complexity of information transfer and enhancing the robustness of the system. Finally, the stability of the system is proved using Lyapunov theorem.