Fully distributed prescribed time robust synchronous tracking control of multi-unmanned systems under communication link faults

This paper addresses the issue of robust prescribed time fully distributed synchronous tracking control of a multi-unmanned system with communication link faults. A novel prescribed time synchronous tracking control scheme is proposed by utilizing an adaptive control strategy under the formation leaderless case and uncertain formation topological weights. Firstly, a second-order multi-unmanned system cooperative control model based on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with aerodynamic damping and communication link faults is established. Secondly, as the system parameters of a leader are unknown to all followers, the leader’s dynamics are assumed to be linear with respect to its state variables to assist in the accomplishment of the fully distributed tracking control within the leaderless case. A parameter estimation method is proposed to estimate the unknown matrices of the leader for each follower. Then, to achieve formation synchronous tracking within a settling time, an adaptive robust distributed control strategy based on distributed state errors is designed for the formation prescribed time tracking under external disturbance and communication link faults. The control gains are designed using auxiliary parameters and a critical eigenvalue scaling technique that takes into account the constraints of the disturbance and communication. Finally, simulation results are shown to validate and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.