Connection-graph-based event-triggered output consensus in multi-agent systems with time-varying couplings

Event-triggered strategies are effective to update local controllers in multi-agent systems (MASs) at necessary discrete times. Based on graph theoretical reasoning, the authors study the distributed event-triggered output consensus in MASs with time-varying couplings. Graph theoretical reasoning provides us a Lyapunov function that fully utilises the properties of a graph such as the path between two arbitrary agents. With this function, the updating of local output-feedback controllers is determined by connection-graph-based state-dependent or time-dependent event functions. Interesting enough, the proposed event-triggered schemes can also be effectively extended to non-linear MASs with time-varying couplings. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations verify the main results.