Stochastic faulty estimator-based non-fragile tracking controller for multi-agent systems with communication delay

Abstract A robust tracking control design problem for a class of linear multi-agent systems with fault signals is addressed in this study, where it is assumed that input signal of the leader is non-zero and unknown to the follower agents. An intermediate estimator, which bears stochastic failures, is designed to achieve the desired tracking performance and to estimate the combined unknown input signal of the leader input and the fault terms simultaneously. Assisted by the estimated terms, a robust non-fragile tracking control protocol that takes into account communication delays is proposed to eliminate the influence of the combined input signal. With the help of the Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional approach, a delay-dependent sufficient criterion is established to ensure that the resulting tracking error system states are uniformly bounded. On the basis of this criterion, the design procedure of the considered non-fragile control gain and the intermediate estimator gain matrices are presented. Two numerical examples, including a practical example, are used to reflect the validity and usefulness of the designed tracking control protocol.