Performance Guaranteed Control for Multi-Agent Systems with Unknown Control Directions

In this paper, a performance guaranteed control algorithm is presented for the consensus control of a class of unknown nonlinear multi-agent systems (MASs) with unknown control directions. It is shown that the states of agents stay within prescribed time-varying restrictions for all time. To attain these new results, an equivalent unconstrained MAS is generated from the original constrained one via a state transformation technique. Stabilization and consensus of the transformed agent states ensure both the consensus of the original agent states as well as the satisfaction of the prescribed restrictions. Based on the Nussbaum gain technique, the unknown control direction problem is solved. Consensus task is achieved theoretically via using Lyapunov synthesis, along with all the closed-loop signals being bounded. Additionally, in the proposed control design, each agent only exchanges the information with its neighbours. Hence, the proposed consensus protocol is distributed. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed controller.