Couple-group consensus of heterogeneous nonlinear multi-agent systems with cooperative–competitive interactions and input saturation

Couple-group consensus of multi-agent systems with cooperative–competitive interactions and input saturation is studied under fixed and switching topologies based on pinning control and event-triggered control. First, for heterogeneous multi-agent systems consisting of first- and second-order agents, we propose two new distributed event-triggered control protocols, and the control protocols both enable the groups of agents to achieve the desired consensus state, which can effectively reduce the number of controller updates and save communication resources. Second, based on the Lyapunov stability theory, the sufficient conditions are established for the couple-group consensus of multi-agent systems. Meanwhile, Zeno behavior is excluded. Third, the effectiveness and feasibility of the control methods proposed in this paper are verified via some simulation examples.