Time-Varying Formation Tracking Control of Linear Multi-Agent Systems with Magnitude and Rate Saturation and Unknown Disturbances

In this paper, we study the leader-following time-varying formation (TVF) tracking control of general linear multi-agent systems (MASs) with nonzero control input of the leader, and the followers which have magnitude and rate saturation (MRS) and unknown disturbances. Under the assumption that only the followers connecting to the leader have access to the leader’s input and state, an output feedback controller incorporating a distributed extended state observer (ESO) is developed to ensure the asymptotic convergence of the formation errors without input saturation. Then, a saturation model is inserted to each follower’s dynamics to constrain the magnitude and rate of the control input, with consideration of MRS. Anti-windup protection loops are applied to compensate for the saturated signals to improve the closed-loop performance. Finally, the theoretical findings are demonstrated via a series of numerical simulations.