Reference model based consensus control of second-order multi-agent systems

This paper deals with the consensus problem of multi-agent systems with second-order dynamics. The objective is to design algorithms such that all agents will have same positions and velocities. First, a reference model based consensus algorithm is proposed. It is proved that the consensus can be achieved if the communication graph has a spanning tree. Different from most of the consensus algorithms proposed in the literature, the parameters of the control laws are different among agents. Therefore, each agent can design its control law independently. Secondly, it gives a consensus algorithm for the case that the velocities of the agents are not available. Thirdly, the effectiveness of the input delay and the communication delay is considered. It shows that consensus can be achieved if the input delay of every agent is smaller than a bound related to parameters in its control law. Finally, some numerical examples are given to illustrate the proposed results.