Observer-Based Robust Containment Control of Multi-Agent Systems with Structural Uncertainties and Multiple Delays

In this paper, a distributed output-feedback control law is proposed to explore the containment control problem for uncertain multi-agent systems with nonlinear dynamics. First, unlike the existing control schemes, an improved observer-based robust containment controller without utilizing the observation of leaders is developed, where the inaccuracy of the model structure is considered. Second, different from previous studies that considered a single transmission delay, both parameter uncertainties and multiple time delays are investigated over a directed graph. Notably, the considered delays are nonuniform: the state delay is related to the nonlinearities, and the transmission delay is taken into account in the controller design. In addition, making use of the delay-product-type quadratic approach, sufficient conditions are rigorously derived to realize containment control, and it is proved that the containment error converges to zero. Finally, a simulation model is constructed in MATLAB R2021a platform to validate the effectiveness of the algorithm.