A Dynamic Periodic Event-Triggered Approach to Consensus of Heterogeneous Linear Multiagent Systems With Time-Varying Communication Delays

IEEE Trans Cybern. 2021 Apr;51(4):1812-1821. doi: 10.1109/TCYB.2020.3015746. Epub 2021 Mar 17.

Abstract

This article is concerned with the event-triggered output consensus problem for heterogeneous multiagent systems (MASs) with nonuniform communication delays. Unlike the existing event-triggered consensus results, more general heterogeneous linear MASs and nonuniform communication delays are considered. To reduce communication among subsystems, novel dynamic periodic event-triggered mechanisms are proposed. By using the event-triggered signals at the previous sampling instant, new distributed observers are designed to eliminate asynchronous behavior caused by nonuniform communication delays. Based on the developed observers, the observer error system is converted into a time-delay system with interval time-varying delays. Besides, a controller is designed by using the states of observers. It is shown that the consensus problem can be solved by the proposed method. Finally, an illustrative example is provided to verify the effectiveness of the developed method.