Sampled-Data Consensus Protocol for Multiagent Systems Subject to Random Intermittent Actuator Faults

In this article, the fault-tolerant leader-following consensus problem is investigated for a class of multiagent systems subject to random intermittent actuator faults. The process of actuator fault occurrence for each agent is described by a Markov chain. By the backstepping procedure with virtual controllers designed based on sampled states, a novel fault-tolerant periodic sampled-data consensus protocol scheme is developed to ensure that all followers can track the trajectory of a leader. Different from existing works, in the proposed design framework, both zero and time-variant effectiveness of the actuators are considered. Using the graph theory, probability theory, and Lyapunov function method, the sufficient conditions on the fault-tolerant leader-following consensus are derived. Finally, two numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.