Prescribed-Time Active Fault-Tolerant Control for Bipartite Average Tracking of Multiagent Systems with Matrix-Weighted Signed Network

In this paper, a prescribed-time active fault-tolerant control (P-AFTC) strategy is proposed for bipartite average tracking in multi-agent systems (MASs) under the presence of actuator faults/failures and perturbations, including external disturbances and parametric uncertainties. To emphasize the impact of matrix coupling in antagonistic communication networks, the bipartite average tracking problem analyzed herein is formulated on the basis of an undirected matrix-weighted signed network. An online prescribed-time fault estimator (PTFE) is introduced, capable of capturing unknown information within a predefined time, independent of design parameters and initial conditions. This estimator is designed to detect, isolate, and adapt to complete unknowns. Building on this, a novel PTFE-based P-AFTC scheme is developed, which does not rely on prior knowledge. This scheme addresses the prescribed-time bipartite average tracking issue in MASs under complex unknowns, such as actuator faults/failures, external disturbances, and parametric uncertainties. Finally, simulation results are presented to validate the theoretical findings.