Output synchronization of wide-area heterogeneous multi-agent systems over intermittent clustered networks

In this paper, the communication network associated with a linear heterogeneous clustered multi-agent system (CMAS) contains several clusters, each of which is modeled by a strongly connected digraph and contains a leader. Intra-cluster agents are in continuous communication with their intra-cluster neighbors during the communication period, whereas only the inter-cluster leaders can communicate with other leaders at a series of discrete moments, known as the reset time. Thus this paper presents a reduced-order observer-based reset output feedback controller that solves the output synchronization problem associated with the linear heterogeneous CMAS. Specifically, a reset internal model is built to solve the output synchronization for each agent, and a reset reduced-order observer is developed to estimate the unavailable states of each agent. Then an output feedback control strategy is developed using only the output information, internal model state, and observer state. Sufficient conditions are also obtained for ensuring the output synchronization of the CMAS. Finally, an illustrative example is provided to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed control strategy.