Multi-Agent Consensus with Improved Minimum Inter-Event Times

In this paper, the consensus problem is studied for linear multi-agent systems on undirected graphs. Based on relative output feedback, we propose a distributed protocol for each agent to achieve consensus without continuous communication among agents. Time- and event-triggered sampling mechanisms with event separation properties are designed for different signals and are guaranteed to have a positive minimum inter-event time. Compared with existing results, the clock variable in the event-triggering mechanism is not restricted to be monotonically decreasing but has the potential to increase, thus improving inter-event times. Moreover, different from [1], the two sampling mechanisms in this paper are decoupled, providing more design convenience. Finally, the theoretical results are demonstrated and verified by numerical simulations.