Two-Phase Attractors for Finite-Duration Consensus of Multiagent Systems

A specific class of nonlinear systems, admitting finite-duration attractors (FDAs), is introduced in this paper, and used for consensus of multiagent systems (MASs). The advantage is that one can obtain a closed-form solution for the settling time function of the presented nonlinear systems. Such a system exhibits a two-phase convergence process, and its settling time function takes values over a finite duration. However, the duration width changes with respect to the initial condition. The FDA-based consensus protocol is shown to make the MAS undertaken achieve finite-duration convergence. With illustrative examples, the perfect consensus property is verified for MASs with or without a leader agent.