Finite-time coordinated tracking for high-order uncertain nonlinear multi-agent systems with directed communication graphs

In this paper, we study the finite-time coordinated tracking problem for a class of high-order uncertain nonlinear multi-agent systems with directed communication graphs. It is assumed that only relative state or output measurements of the neighbors are available for each agent and only a part of the followers have access to the information of the dynamic leader. When relative state measurements are available, a bounded distributed finite-time coordinated tracking controller is proposed for each follower based on sliding mode control techniques. When only relative output measurements are available, robust exact differentiators are employed to estimate the relative state information. Then a distributed finite-time coordinated tracking controller is designed based on the estimated relative state. Numerical simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategies.