Consensus control of second-order leader–follower multi-agent systems with event-triggered strategy

In this paper we analyse an event-triggered control strategy for the leader–follower consensus problem of second-order multi-agent systems. Controllers of followers update when triggering a function, which is calculated from information transmitted from neighbours and itself, achieves a certain value. Within this strategy and with a strict positive lower bound on the inter-event interval, the second-order system is assured to achieve leader–follower consensus. A centralised formulation is first proposed and then the results are extended to the decentralised form which only requires information of their neighbours and the leader instead of all agents in the system. Finally, a simulation example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.