Distributed adaptive output feedback containment control for time-delay nonlinear multiagent systems

This paper addresses the distributed adaptive containment control problem for uncertain nonlinear multiagent systems (MASs) with time delays and unmodeled dynamics under fixed directed graph. With outputs information of neighbors, the local reference generator of each agent is constructed to generate corresponding virtual tracking trajectory belonging to the convex hull spanned by dynamic leaders. Based on the reference generator, we utilize the nonlinear function approximation method and dynamic gain scaling technique to design the linear-like distributed adaptive output feedback controller. The proposed scheme can significantly relax conditions on nonlinearities with time delays, and greatly simplify the controller design procedure. Using a novel lemma, it is proved that the containment errors can converge to an arbitrarily small compact set and the resulting closed-loop system is semi-globally stable. In addition, if uncertain nonlinearities can be modeled as the product of unknown constant parameters and known functions, the global containment control can be achieved. Finally, simulation results are given to illustrate the effectiveness of proposed method.