New consensus criteria for nonlinear time-delay MASs under semi-Markov switching topology via aperiodically intermittent event-triggered communication

The leader-following consensus problem for a class of multi-agent systems with nonlinear disturbances and time-varying delays under semi-Markovian switching topologies is investigated in this paper. A novel aperiodically intermittent time-triggered communication protocol is proposed and constructs a minimum working interval ratio related to the performance degradation rates of the system in different intervals. This protocol triggers control updates only when the communication error states between followers and their neighboring agents satisfy the predefined triggering conditions, thereby significantly reducing energy consumption. In addition, in order to fully consider the influence of time delay and nonlinear coupling in practical applications, by constructing a more general Lyapunov functional, some sufficient stability conditions expressed in linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) to ensure the leader-following consensus of multi-agent systems are strictly derived. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by numerical simulation.