Cooperative fault‐tolerant fuzzy tracking control for nonlinear multiagent systems under directed network topology via a hierarchical control scheme

Abstract This article investigates the issue of cooperative fault‐tolerant fuzzy tracking control for a class of nonlinear multiagent systems subject to actuator failures and external disturbances under a directed network topology. By introducing the hierarchical control scheme, a fully distributed tracking control method is proposed. Specifically, the hierarchical control framework includes the upper layer and the lower layer. The upper layer consists of a virtual system and a virtual cooperative controller. The lower layer consists of an actual system and a fault‐tolerant tracking controller. Compared with the most existing distributed fault‐tolerant control methods where the fault in one agent may cause chain reaction, the phenomenon of fault propagation can be eliminated. Finally, the proposed strategy is demonstrated by simulation results.