Hierarchical Transfer‐Based Leader‐Following Consensus Control for Nonlinear Multi‐Agent Systems With Switching Topologies

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the leader‐following consensus (LFC) control for high‐order strict‐feedback nonlinear multi‐agent systems (MASs) with switching topologies. The key challenge lies in the strong dependency of LFC control in continuous information. The discontinuity of neighbor information at switching moments makes it difficult to handle the coupled neighbor information with approximation methods and to effectively estimate the leader information. Further compounding this issue, the intractable high‐order terms in coupled neighborhood information pose an additional challenge. To tackle these, a hierarchical transfer‐based control method featuring two key innovations is proposed. First, a hierarchical transfer chain of Lyapunov functions is designed based on the nested characteristics of the state variables across subsystems. By leveraging the order advantage, the hierarchical transfer method achieves analytical decoupling in higher‐order subsystems and avoids approximation errors. Second, designing a high‐order compatible distributed observer with a cascaded low‐order filter structure. This design avoids the impact of discontinuous components on observer through the substitution of observer states with auxiliary variables. Theoretical analysis demonstrates that the proposed control method ensures practical LFC control and maintains boundedness of all signals. Finally, simulation results are provided to validate the effectiveness of this method.