Leader-following consensus of second-order multi-agent systems with time-varying delays and arbitrary weights

Abstract

Using Lyapunov first method instead of traditional Lyapunov second method, this paper focuses on studying the consensus tracking control problem of multi-agent systems (MASs) with time-varying delays and arbitrary adjacent weights under fixed topology and switching topology, respectively. We first give four equivalent criteria for MASs with fixed communication topology, where the positive stability of matrix [Formula: see text] ( L is the Laplacian matrix of [Formula: see text], B is the leader’s adjacency matrix) not only plays a key role as usual but also becomes an urgent and more complicated problem due to the introduction of negative weights in MASs. Second, for MASs with switching communication topology if the average dwell time of switching topology, the total activation time of stable subsystems and the upper bound of time delay satisfy some conditions, then MASs with all stable subsystems (partially stable subsystems) can achieve consensus tracking. Finally, simulations are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of our theoretical results.