Scaled consensus of second-order nonlinear multi-agent systems with fully distributed adaptive aperiodically intermittent communication: A non-reduced order approach

This study is focused on the scaled consensus problem of second-order multi-agent systems (SOMASs) with nonlinear dynamics under fully distributed adaptive aperiodic intermittent (DAAPI) communication. Motivated by the non-reduced order approach (NROA), a novel Lyapunov function is proposed to directly analyze the scaled consensus of pure second-order MASs. By contrast with the existing results, the approach in this study avoids the double dimension problem arising from the reduced order method, which greatly alleviates the complexity of the theoretical analysis. Moreover, two new fully DAAPI communication protocols are well designed to achieve scaled consensus for leaderless and leader-following, respectively. It is worth noting that two entirely different time-varying gains are devised in the protocols to regulate the position and velocity states of the agent, respectively, which can realize more flexible and precise control to fulfill the goal of reducing the control cost. Lastly, the effectiveness of the theoretical derivation is demonstrated by two numerical examples and comparative experiment.