Consensus control of high-order multi-agent systems with relative state delay based on event triggers

Abstract This paper investigates the consensus control problem of a high-order multi-agent system with relative state delay, utilizing event-triggered control. Considering the communication delay between agents in practical applications, this paper introduces the concept of relative state delay. It proposes a new event-triggered consensus control method, which enables all agents in the system to move in coordination and achieve state consensus under the condition of relative state delay, and gives a sufficient condition for the system’s convergence speed to reach zero. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by mathematical analysis and a simulation experiment. The results demonstrate that a positive relative delay drives the consensus velocity to zero, while the proposed protocol can keep the system stable under relative state delay.