Adaptive consensus control of uncertain nonlinear multi-agent systems with communication delays and relative output information

This paper explores the challenges of distributed adaptive consensus control problems in nonlinear multi-agent systems with unknown parameters and communication delays. To address these issues, a novel backstepping-based adaptive state feedback control protocol is proposed by utilizing a reference dynamic system. Furthermore, an output-feedback consensus control algorithm incorporating a state observer is introduced. Through the application of Laplace transformation, matrix properties, and graph theory, it is demonstrated that the closed-loop multi-agent system ensures the boundedness of all signals and achieves output consensus, even in the presence of nonuniform communication delays. Numerical simulations on a group of inverted pendulums illustrate the effectiveness of these algorithms.