Hierarchical containment control with cluster consensus for multiagent systems under directional three-layer topology

This paper investigates the hierarchical containment control with the cluster consensus behaviour for heterogeneous multiagent systems. Firstly, according to the investigated cooperative behaviour, the hierarchical containment error vector is formulated. Based on the cooperative output regulation, the hierarchical framework is developed such that the hierarchical containment error vector can be converged to zero. Secondly, since the directional three-layer topology breaks the assumption of directed spanning tree, the existing type of containment control law fails to reach the investigated hierarchical cooperation. To solve this issue, the cross-layer observer is designed to guarantee the convergence of hierarchical cooperation. Then, the novel hierarchical containment control law with the designed cross-layer observer is proposed to ensure that the cluster consensus behaviour can be reached in the convex hull. Moreover, by adjusting the defined hierarchical parameters, the global containment control performance can be improved. Finally, the numerical simulation is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed hierarchical containment control law.