Observer-based containment for a class of nonlinear multi-agent systems with time-delayed protocols

In this paper, the containment problem for multiagent systems with nonlinear uncertainties under directed communication topologies is investigated. Based on the outdated information, distributed containment controllers combined with observers and relative output information of neighboring agents are designed, under which the states of all the followers will asymptotically converge to the convex hull spanned by the leaders. It has been shown that the proposed containment protocols can not only guarantee the asymptotical containment of the nonlinear multi-agent system, but also restrain nonlinear uncertainties. Finally, several numerical simulations are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.