Switching Control of Nonlinear Multi-Agent Systems with Time Delays

This paper addresses the switching control problem for nonlinear multi-agent systems with time delays. Under the circumstance that the system mode and controller mode are asynchronous, the switching time delays seriously disrupt the stability of nonlinear multi-agent systems and increase the difficulty of investigating the system stability. Based on the methods such as average dwell time, mode-dependent average dwell time, and mathematical inequalities, the multiple Lyapunov functionals and a novel switching signal are constructed to investigate the effect of time-dealy phenomenon on nonlinear multi-agent systems. The upper bound of the difference for multiple Lyapunov functionals is allowed to be time varying, negative and positive. Our proposed results improve upon the existing results and subsume some existing ones as special cases. Finally, simulation example is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of our results.