A Boundary‐Dependent Asynchronous Intermittent Control Approach to Cluster Consensus of Multi‐Agent Systems

ABSTRACT In this paper, we investigate the cluster consensus problem of multi‐agent systems by proposing a novel boundary‐dependent asynchronous intermittent control mechanism. Different from the current works on intermittent control, this intermittent mechanism allows each agent to asynchronously adjust the intermittent time according to their actual control requirements. In this intermittent mechanism, the non‐negative real area is divided into three sub‐regions through two boundary lines (safety boundary and intermittence boundary) to detect the error states of each agent, and a new asynchronous intermittent mode is presented to arrange work period and break period by the detected real‐time error states. By using the relative output measurements of neighboring agents, the asynchronous intermittent control protocols are designed to regulate the output of each agent to the cluster consensus. Compared with the current time‐dependent mechanisms, the proposed boundary‐dependent intermittent control mechanism can adjust work and break periods of each agent asynchronously according to the control requirements, under which the multi‐agent systems can tolerate more break periods and reduce the communication frequency. Finally, numerical simulations are performed to verify our results.