Consensus of Multiagent Systems With Time-Varying Input Delay and Relative State Saturation Constraints

Relative states between neighbors are ubiquitous in large-scale systems, and the relative state saturations need to be considered when designing controllers based on this relative state information. This article investigates the consensus control of the delayed multiagent systems under the relative state saturations. By means of an incidence matrix, the consensus under the relative state saturations is transformed into the stability of edge dynamics operating on constrained sets. To enable the edge states to stay within the constrained sets, a novel nonlinear protocol is designed by embedding an elaborate saturation function. Sufficient conditions are identified, under which not only consensus is achieved but also relative state saturations do not occur. Moreover, this analytical result can address the consensus problem while preserving connectivity, within the limited communication range framework. Simulations illustrate the theoretical results.