Containment control with multiple interacting leaders under switching topologies

In this paper, containment control for continuous-time multi-agent systems with multiple interacting leaders is investigated. According to the role each agent plays in the multi-agent team, the agents are classified into two categories: leaders and followers. The containment control problem in this paper is that the leaders converge to a desired formation and the followers move into the convex hull spanned by the leaders´ final positions. A sufficient condition for containment control is that the union of the interaction graphs has a spanning tree frequently enough as the system evolves. It is shown that the followers´ positions in the convex hull are dynamic due to the switching topology. The theoretical results are illustrated by some simulations.