Position‐constrained containment control of heterogeneous multi‐agent systems with nonconvex inputs, switching topologies, and delays

Abstract In this paper, the containment control problem for discrete‐time heterogeneous multi‐agent systems (MASs) with coupled constraints, switching topologies, and communication delays is investigated. The heterogeneous model with position and control input constraints consists of second‐order agents as well as first‐order agents. A class of nonconvex distributed control protocols is developed to ensure that all followers converge to the convex hull spanned by the static leaders, assuming at least one directed path exists from a follower to one of the leaders in the union of topologies at each time interval. Rigorous theoretical analysis is conducted to address the nonlinearities arising from position and control input constraints during the decoupling process, thereby proving the nonincreasing characteristic of the maximum distance. Finally, a simulation example is provided to validate the theoretical results.