Sampled-position states based consensus of networked multi-agent systems with second-order dynamics subject to communication delays

This paper is concerned with the sampled-position states based consensus of networked multi-agent systems with second-order dynamics, where agents are connected through communication channels subject to time-varying communication delays. Note that consensus in such systems cannot be reached if using only the current sampled-position states. This paper investigates the positive effects of time-varying communication delays on the consensus. For two cases, where a directed graph has a fixed or switching topology, several sufficient conditions on consensus are derived by using a discretized Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional method. Based on the obtained conditions, suitable control protocols can be devised through tuning two parameters. Finally, simulation shows that consensus can be achieved using sampled-position states if the time-varying communication delays are within a certain time interval with its lower bound strictly greater than zero.