Consensus Control via Edge-Event-Triggered Mechanism for Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Systems Under Disturbances

In this paper, an edge-event-triggered sliding-mode control strategy is designed to achieve consensus of heterogeneous multi-agent systems (MASs) consisting of first- and second-order agents under unknown disturbances. The edge-event-triggered mechanism utilizes the relative positions between an agent and its neighbors, independent of global coordinates. The designed controller has two components. First, the sliding-mode control strategy enables heterogeneous MASs to reach and maintain their states on the sliding-mode surface, despite unknown disturbances. Subsequently, the equivalent control strategy, combined with an edge-event-triggered control (EETC) technique guarantees consensus for heterogeneous MASs while avoiding Zeno behavior. Triggering functions are developed for the agents that form the same edge, allowing for asynchronous edge-event-triggered mechanisms. By employing the Lyapunov stability theory, sufficient conditions for the proposed control strategy are given. Ultimately, simulation results validate the feasibility of theoretical findings.