Time-Varying Formation Predictive Control of Second-Order Networked Multi-Agent Systems With Three-Channel Random Communication Constraints

This brief presents a time-varying formation tracking control scheme for second-order networked multi-agent systems with random network-induced delays and packet losses. Three types of communication channels are considered: the feedback and forward channels of each agent as well as the channels between agents. To mitigate the adverse effects of the three-channel communication constraints, a novel distributed predictive control scheme is proposed by combining the networked predictive control approach and the time-delay system approach. Then, the stability condition for the resulting closed-loop time-delay system is derived via the Lyapunov theory, which is independent of the random communication constraints in the forward and feedback channels. Finally, comparative simulation results verify the superiority of the proposed scheme.