A new distributed Zeno-free event-triggered algorithm for multi-agent consensus

This paper develops a novel distributed event-triggered algorithm for achieving multi-agent consensus while guaranteeing a fully Zeno-free triggering for all the agents. In this framework, the controller input and event detector are based on local measurements in terms of relative states with respect to neighboring agents, and each agent updates its control input only at its own triggering instants. A bounded and convergent function is included in the event detector function for each agent, which avoids the comparison of event error term to a zero threshold in the zero-crossing scenario. We also revisit several popular event-triggered consensus algorithms reported in the literature, clarify some issues relating to Zeno triggering, consensus convergence, communication/measurement requirements, local/global coordinate frames, etc., and highlight the advantages of the event-triggered consensus algorithm proposed in this paper.