IJCAS

The output regulation (OR) problem for linear heterogeneous networked multi-agent systems (NMAS) with communication constraints is investigated in this paper. A cost function is given to measure the coordinated control between NMAS. The objective of this paper is to design controllers such that not only the cost function is optimized, the asymptotic tracking and disturbance rejection are achieved but also the communication constraints are actively compensated. It is assumed that only a part of agents can receive the information of the exosystem, which can generate the reference signal and the disturbance signal. First, distributed observers are proposed to estimate the states of the subsystems and the state of the exosystem, which can guarantee the exponentially convergence of the estimation errors. Then, an observer-based predictive controller is proposed using feedforward method and networked predictive control method. With the help of OR technique, it indicates that the proposed predictive control scheme can deal with the OR problem. Finally, a numerical example is presented to illustrate our results.

Keywords: Communication constraints, distributed control, networked multi-agent systems, output regulation.