Fully distributed leader–follower consensus of multiagent systems by observer based linear time-varying protocol

This paper proposes a fully distributed, observer based protocol using linear time-varying feedback for the leader–follower consensus problem in linear multi-agent systems. The protocol is inherently distributed, relying solely on local information without requiring knowledge of the global communication topology. For practical implementability, the protocol features a bounded protocol gain and highly tunable parameters, which allow designers to strike a deliberate balance among different performance criteria for specific objectives. The permissible ranges for these parameters are rigorously derived to ensure both consensus and performance. Furthermore, the dimension of the observer is not fixed but is allowed to vary within a certain range. Consensus is formally analyzed within a time-varying Lyapunov framework, and the theoretical findings are validated through numerical simulations that demonstrate the method's efficacy.