Distributed Output Regulation of Nonlinear Multi-Agent Systems via Host Internal Model

This note presents a host internal model (h-IM) approach to distributed output regulation of reaching nonlinear leader-following consensus. Focusing on a basic nonlinear scenario of identical (or homogeneous) agents of a normal form, it is shown that the problem is solvable as long as its interaction digraph contains a certain directed spanning tree. A constructive Lyapunov protocol is proposed by incorporating a single h-IM. The result is also demonstrated by FitzHugh-Nagumo (FHN) and Lorenz type nonlinear dynamic networks.