Robust finite-time consensus control for Euler–Lagrange multi-agent systems subject to switching topologies and uncertainties

• A finite-time integral sliding mode (ISM) surface possessing the complete robustness is proposed for disturbance rejection. The complete robustness to the disturbances is guaranteed by removing the reaching phase of sliding mode control. • Based on the proposed ISM surface, a finite-time consensus control framework consisting of nominal part and discontinuous part is developed. • For the directed switching topologies, a new finite-time ISM control protocol is developed. The proposed ISM algorithm achieves finite-time consensus convergence even in the presence of external disturbances. Euler–Lagrange (EL) system is a typical nonlinear system widely used to model robot systems. Although consensus of EL multi-agent systems has been extensively studied in recent years, how to achieve better consensus performance under constraints such as switching topologies and uncertainties is still an open issue. Aiming at fast convergence and effective disturbance rejection, this paper studies the integral sliding mode control problem for robust finite-time consensus of EL multi-agent systems subject to switching topologies and uncertainties. A basic integral sliding mode control (SMC) scheme is first presented for finite-time consensus of EL multi-agent systems subject to undirected topologies and uncertainties. It is shown that the proposed consensus protocol reaches good disturbance rejection and achieves robust finite-time consensus while avoiding the singularity problem in the existing studies. The proposed integral sliding mode control scheme is further extended to finite-time consensus of EL multi-agent systems subject to directed and switching topologies. Compared with the existing algorithms, faster finite-time convergence is achieved. In the simulation studies, the obtained results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithm.