Distributed node-to-node consensus of multi-agent systems with nonlinear dynamics and communication constraints

This paper investigates the distributed node-to-node consensus problem of multi-agent systems with nonlinear dynamics and communication constraints. The coordination goal to make each follower track the corresponding leader asymptotically where only a small fraction of followers can sense the states of their corresponding leaders on some disconnected time intervals. A novel adaptive intermittent control protocol is introduced, where only intermittent relative local information is used. Based on the Lyapunov stability theory and M-matrix theory, some novel and simple criteria are derived for node-to-node consensus of multi-agent systems under the condition that only a small fraction of followers can sense their corresponding leaders and the measure of communication is larger than a threshold value. Finally, a numerical example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical results.