Distributed model reference adaptive control for cooperative tracking of uncertain dynamical multi‐agent systems

In this study, a distributed model reference adaptive control architecture is developed to achieve the cooperative tracking of uncertain dynamical multi‐agent systems, where the reference model serves as a virtual leader for the group to track. Two adaptive laws, with one adjusting the coupling weights and the other adjusting the neural network weights, are designed based on the relative state information of neighbouring agents. The proposed controller guarantees that the state of each agent synchronizes to that of the reference model over any undirected connected communication graphs, and all signals in the closed‐loop network are uniformly ultimately bounded. In contrast to the existing results, the developed controller can be implemented in a fully distributed manner by each agent without using any global information and the accurate model of each agent. An extension to asymptotic stability is further studied.