Distributed coordination of linear second-order multi-agent systems with communication constraints

In this paper, we consider the coordination problem of double integrator dynamics under the assumption of intermittent communication between agents in the presence of time-varying communication delays. More precisely, we consider the containment control problem with multiple dynamic leaders under a directed interconnection graph topology. We present distributed control algorithms, in the full and partial state feedback cases, where the communication between agents is performed only at some discrete instants of time in the presence of irregular communication delays and packet dropouts. It is shown that the proposed approach leads to our control objectives under sufficient conditions that relate the characteristics of the communication process and the control gains. The effectiveness of the proposed control schemes is illustrated through numerical examples.