Automatica 50 (2014) 452–464

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Automatica
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/automatica

Consensus of high-order multi-agent systems with large input and

communication delays✩
Bin Zhou a,1 , Zongli Lin b
a
Center for Control Theory and Guidance Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, P.O. Box 416, Harbin, 150001, China
b
Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400743-4743, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4743, USA

article info abstract

Article history: We study in this paper the consensus problem for multi-agent systems with agents characterized by high-
Received 13 September 2012 order linear systems with time delays in both the communication network and inputs. Provided that the
Received in revised form open-loop dynamics of the agents is not exponentially unstable, but may be polynomially unstable, and
10 September 2013
the communication topology contains a directed spanning tree, a truncated predictor feedback approach
Accepted 12 November 2013
Available online 17 December 2013
is established to solve the consensus problem. It is shown that, if the delays are constant and exactly
known, the consensus problems can be solved by both full state feedback and observer based output
Keywords:
feedback protocols for arbitrarily large yet bounded delays. If it is further assumed that the open-loop
Consensus dynamics of the agents only contains zero eigenvalues, the delays are allowed to be time-varying and
High-order multi-agent systems unknown. Numerical examples are worked out to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches.
Time delays © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Truncated predictor feedback

1. Introduction challenging tasks that cannot be accomplished if they operate

Consensus refers to a group of agents under appropriate
distributed control policies reaching an agreement on certain
quantities of interest (Ishii, Tempo, & Bai, 2012; Lv, Chen, & di
Bernardo, 2010; Lv, Chen, & Yu, 2011; Ren & Cao, 2011). Consensus
is a fundamental problem in cooperative control of multi-agent
systems and is closely related with other high-level problems such
as flocking (Su, Wang, & Chen, 2009; Yu, Chen, & Cao, 2010a)
and formation control (Fax & Murray, 2004), which find many
applications in engineering such as sensor networks, spacecraft
formation flying and cooperative surveillance (Chen & Duan, 2008;
Duan, Chen, & Huang, 2007; Ren, Beard, & Atkins, 2007). Indeed,
a group of autonomous agents connected by a communication or
sensing network can coordinate with each other to perform some
✩ This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China under grant numbers 61104124, 61273028, 61273105 and 61322305,
by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grants
HIT.BRETIII.201210 and HIT.BRETIV.201305, by the Foundation for Innovative
Research Group of the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant
61021002, and by the National Science Foundation of the United States under grant
number CMMI-1129752. The material in this paper was partially presented at the
2013 American Control Conference (ACC2013), June 17–19, 2013, Washington, DC,
USA. This paper was recommended for publication in revised form by Associate
Editor Antonis Papachristodoulou under the direction of Editor Frank Allgöwer.
E-mail addresses: binzhoulee@163.com, binzhou@hit.edu.cn (B. Zhou),
zl5y@virginia.edu (Z. Lin).
1 Tel.: +86 451 87556211; fax: +86 45186418034.
0005-1098/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.automatica.2013.12.006
uncooperatively. As a result, consensus via cooperative control
of a group of agents has received considerable attention from
various scientific communities in the past several decades (see
Duan, Wang, Chen, & Huang, 2008, Hong, Chen, & Bushnell, 2006,
Ishii & Tempo, 2010, Li & Jiang, 2009, Li & Xie, 2011, Lv et al., 2011,
Qin, Gao, & Zheng, 2011, Ren & Cao, 2011, Su et al., 2009, Su, Wang,
& Chen, 2010, You & Xie, 2011b and the references therein).
While the existing literature deals with consensus problem
for multi-agent systems captured by low order dynamics such
as single integrator, double integrator, and oscillators, consensus
for multi-agent systems with high-order dynamics has received
little attention, except for multi-agent systems whose agents are
modeled by integrator chains of length greater than two (see,
for example, Ren, Moore, & Chen, 2006). Recently, the consensus
problem for multi-agent systems with agents modeled by high-
order linear dynamic systems is considered in Seo, Shim, and
Back (2009) by dynamic output feedback. The consensus problems
for both continuous-time and discrete-time linear multi-agent
systems with directed communication topologies are addressed
in Li, Liu, Lin, and Ren (2011), where distributed reduced-order
observer-based consensus protocols are developed. For single
input high-order nonlinear multi-agent systems with unknown
dynamics, an adaptive cooperative tracking control scheme is
considered in Zhang and Lewis (2012). Synchronization of identical
general linear systems on a digraph containing a spanning tree is
studied in Zhang, Lewis, and Das (2011) by establishing both state
feedback and observer based output feedback protocols. For more
 B. Zhou, Z. Lin / Automatica 50 (2014) 452–464
related work on consensus of high-order multi-agent systems, see
Li et al. (2011), Ren et al. (2006), Seo et al. (2009), Su and Huang
(2012b), You and Xie (2011a) and the references cited there.
Delay effect on the convergence of consensus protocols is an
important issue to be considered. One source of time delay in
multi-agent systems is the communication from one agent to
another, which is named as communication delay. Another source
of time delay is related with the processing and connecting time
for the packets arriving at each agent, which is called input
delay (Tian & Liu, 2009). Consensus of multi-agent systems with
communication and/or input delays has been extensively studied
in the literature (see Lin, Jia, Du, & Yuan, 2007, Olfati-Saber &
Murray, 2004, Tian & Liu, 2009 and the references therein). In
most of these studies, the time delays are assumed to be unknown
and the main purpose is to find the upper bounds on the time
delays such that the consensus can still be achieved in the presence
of time delay. For some simple agent dynamics, for example,
those of single integrators or single oscillators, establishing the
necessary and sufficient conditions on the maximal allowable time
delay is possible under a prescribed protocol by analyzing the
roots of certain characteristic equations (see, for example, Lin
et al., 2007, Olfati-Saber & Murray, 2004, Rudy & Olgac, 2011
and Yu, Chen, & Cao, 2010b, for details). By using the generalized
Nyquist criterion, some set-valued conditions are established
in Munz, Papachristodoulou, and Allgower (2010) to guarantee
the consensus of general single-input–single-output linear multi-
agent systems with delays and explicit conditions for determining
the convergence rate of single-integrator multi-agent systems are
also proposed there. In Munz, Papachristodoulou, and Allgower
(2011a), robust static output-feedback controllers are designed to
achieve consensus in networks of heterogeneous agents modeled
as nonlinear systems of relative degree two in the presence of
heterogeneous communication delays. Very recently, the high-
order consensus problem for heterogeneous multi-agent systems
with unknown communication delays is studied in Tian and Zhang
(2012) and a necessary and sufficient condition is given for the
existence of a high-order consensus solution to heterogeneous
multi-agent systems.
This paper studies the consensus problem for multi-agent sys-
tems with agents characterized by high-order linear systems with
time delays. The time delays can be in both the communication
network and the inputs of the agents. Since the delays are allowed
to be arbitrarily large, under the assumption that the communica-
tion topology among the agents contains a directed spanning tree,
we first employ the well-known predictor feedback (which is also
known as the finite spectrum assignment and model reduction ap-
proach, Manitius & Olbrot, 1979, Zhou, Lin, & Duan, 2012) to design
both distributed state feedback and observer based output feed-
back protocols such that the delays are completely compensated.
However, as the predictor feedback protocols require the exact
information of the network and the relative input signals among
the agents, they may suffer some implementation problems. To
overcome this problem, under the additional condition that the
open-loop dynamics of the agents is at most polynomially unstable,
we show that the consensus problems can also be solved by trun-
cated predictor feedback protocols which need neither the exact
information of the network nor the relative input signals among
the agents. The allowable delays under the truncated predictor
feedback based protocols can also be arbitrarily large, yet bounded.
We also show that, if the open-loop dynamics of the agents only
contains zero eigenvalues, the time delays are allowed to be time-
varying and unknown, namely, for an arbitrarily given positive
number τ ∗ , the established explicit distributed protocols (depen-
dent on τ ∗ ) achieve consensus for arbitrary time delays bounded
by τ ∗ . Numerical examples are worked out to illustrate the effec-
tiveness of the proposed protocols.
453
We emphasize that, for observer based output feedback
consensus, as the protocol is distributed, the observer error
dynamics and the dynamics of the agents are coupled. As a result,
an intricate Lyapunov analysis of the stability of the closed-loop
multi-agent system has to be performed. We also emphasize that,
while most of the literature on consensus of multi-agent systems
with time delays deals with the analysis of robustness with respect
to delays, that is, to estimate the bounds on the time delays under
which a pre-designed consensus protocol continues to achieve
consensus in the presence of time delays that are generally of
small size (see, for example, Lin et al., 2007, Munz et al., 2010,
2011a, Munz, Papachristodoulou, & Allgower, 2012, Olfati-Saber &
Murray, 2004, Qin et al., 2011, Rudy & Olgac, 2011 and Yu et al.,
2010b), in the present paper, we take time delays into account in
our design of consensus protocol and we allow the delays to be
arbitrarily large. Particularly, we adjust a design parameter in the
protocols in accordance with the size of the delays.
The remaining part of this paper is organized as follows. The
problem formulation is given in Section 2. The state feedback con-
sensus and observer based output feedback consensus problems
are respectively solved in Sections 3 and 4. Numerical examples
are provided in Section 5 to validate the effectiveness of the pro-
posed protocols. Finally, Section 6 concludes the paper.
Notation: The notation used in this paper is fairly standard. For a
complex matrix A with appropriate dimensions, AT , AH , λ(A), ∥A∥
are respectively its transpose, conjugated transpose, eigenvalue
set, and norm. For a positive scalar τ , let Cn,τ = C ([−τ , 0] , Rn )
denote the Banach space of continuous vector functions mapping
the interval [−τ , 0] into Rn with the topology of uniform conver-
gence, and let xt ∈ Cn,τ denote the restriction of x(t ) to the inter-
val [t − τ , t] translated to [−τ , 0], that is, xt (θ) = x (t + θ ) , θ ∈
[−τ , 0]. For two matrices A and B, we use A ⊗ B to denote their
Kronecker product. For two integers p and q with p ≤ q, the sym-
bol I [p, q] refers to the set {p, p + 1, . . . , q}. For a complex num-
ber s, we use Re {s} and |s| to denote respectively its real part and
model. Finally, throughout this paper, if not specified, for a series
of vectors xi , i ∈ I [1, N] with appropriate dimensions, we denote
T
x = xT1 xT2 xTN

··· .
2. Problem formulation and preliminaries
We consider a continuous-time high-order multi-agent system
described by
ẋi (t ) = Axi (t ) + Bui (t − τcon ) ,

(1)
yi (t ) = Cxi (t ), i ∈ I [1, N] ,
where xi ∈ Rn , ui ∈ Rm and yi ∈ Rp are the state, the control
and the output of Agent i, respectively, N ≥ 1 is a given integer
denoting the number of agents, τcon ≥ 0 is the input delay, and
(A, B, C ) is a given matrix triple. Let the communication topology
among these agents be characterized by a weighted directed graph
G (N ,E , A
 ), where N is the node set, E is the edge set, and
A = αij ∈ RN ×N is the weighted adjacency matrix. Denote the
 
corresponding Laplacian by L = lij ∈ RN ×N .
In the full information case, we assume that Agent i collects the
delayed state information of its neighboring agents by the rule

zi (t ) = αij xi (t − τcom ) − xj (t − τcom )
 
j∈Ni
N

= lij xj (t − τcom ) , i ∈ I [1, N] , (2)
j =1
where τcom ≥ 0 represents the communication delay and Ni = {j :
αij ̸= 0}. In the partial information case, we assume that Agent i
454 B. Zhou, Z. Lin / Automatica 50 (2014) 452–464
collects the delayed output information of its neighboring agents
by the rule
N
 However, Assumption 1 allows A to have nonzero eigenvalues with
wi ( t ) = lij yj (t − τcom ) , i ∈ I [1, N] .
j =1
For future use, we assume that the initial conditions of the multi-
agent system (1) are xi (θ) = (xi )0 ∈ Cn,τ and ui (θ ) = (ui )0 ∈
Cm,τ , θ ∈ [−τ , 0], where τ = τcon + τcom . In this paper, we are
interested in the design of the state feedback protocol ui (t ) =
ui (zi ) , i ∈ I [1, N], and observer based output feedback protocol
ui (t ) = ui (wi , ωi ) , ω̇i = h (ωi , wi ) , i ∈ I [1, N], that achieve
consensus of the multi-agent system (1). To this end, we first
introduce the concept of consensus.
Definition 1. The high-order
 linear multi-agent system (1) achie-
ves consensus if limt →∞ xi (t ) − xj (t ) = 0, ∀i, j ∈ I [1, N].

Remark 1. By definition, if the high-order multi-agent system (1)
achieves consensus, then there exists a signal s(t ) ∈ Rn , which may
be unbounded, such that limt →∞ ∥xi (t ) − s(t )∥ = 0, ∀i ∈ I [1, N].
The signal s(t ) is referred to as the reference trajectory.
The problems we are to solve can then be formally stated as
follows.
Problem 1 (State Feedback Consensus). Design a state feedback
protocol ui (t ) = ui (zi (t )) = Fzi (t ), where zi (t ) is defined in (2)
and F ∈ Rm×n is a constant matrix, such that the high-order linear
multi-agent system (1) with time delays in both the inputs and the
communication network achieves consensus.
Problem 2 (Observer Based Output Feedback Consensus). Design a
finite dimensional stable observer based output feedback protocol,
expressed in the form of
ω̇i (t ) = AF ωi (t ) + BF wi (t ), ωi (0) ∈ Rn ,

ui (t ) = CF ωi (t ) + DF wi (t ), i ∈ I [1, N] ,
where AF ∈ Rn×n is Hurwitz, such that the linear continuous-time
high-order multi-agent system (1) with time delays in both the
inputs and the communication network achieves consensus and
limt →∞ ∥ωi (t )∥ = 0, ∀i ∈ I [1, N].
We will impose some assumptions on the linear continuous-
time high-order multi-agent system (1). First, to ensure that the
consensus value reached by the agents will not tend to infin-
ity exponentially, namely, the reference trajectory s(t ) defined in
Remark 1 is not exponentially diverging, the matrix A should not
contain eigenvalues in the open right-half plane (Li, Duan, Chen,
& Huang, 2010; Seo et al., 2009). Hence we should assume that
all the eigenvalues of A are located on the closed left-half plane.
In this case, we can perform a state transformation such that the
asymptotically stable modes and the modes on the imaginary axis
are de-coupled, and, consequently, only the consensus problem for
multi-agent systems associated with these modes on the imagi-
nary axis is required to be solved (see Remark 6 in Su and Huang
(2012a) for details). Hence, without loss of generality, we will im-
pose the following assumption on the multi-agent system (1).
Assumption 1. The matrix pair (A, B) is controllable, the matrix
pair (A, C ) is observable, and all the eigenvalues of A are on the
imaginary axis.
Notice that multi-agent systems with agents characterized by a
chain of integrators or a single oscillator (see, for example, Lin et al.,
2007 and Yu et al., 2010b) satisfy Assumption 1 automatically.
(3) algebraic and geometry multiplicities larger than 1, and is thus
weaker than the existing assumptions, for example, Assumption
1 in Su and Huang (2012a). We notice that such an assumption is
also made in Wang, Saberi, Stoorvogel, Grip, and Yang (2013).
Our second assumption is concerned with the communication
topology among the agents.
Assumption 2. The communication topology G (N , E , A) con-
tains a directed spanning tree.
This assumption is necessary for guaranteeing a solution to the
consensus problem even in the absence of delay (see, for example,
Li et al., 2010 and Seo et al., 2009). Under Assumption 2, there
exists a nonsingular matrix T ∈ CN ×N , whose first column is 1N ,
[1, 1, . . . , 1]T ∈ RN , such that (Ren & Cao, 2011)
0
 
 λ2 δ2   
−1
 .. .. , 0
 0
T LT =  . . 0 DL
 
 λ N −1 δ N −1 
λN
, JL , (5)
where λi are such that Re {λi } > 0, i ∈ I [2, N], and δi , i ∈
I [2, N − 1], equals either 1 or 0. For future use, we define δN = 0.
At the end of this section, we introduce the following lemma
which plays the central role in the stability analysis in the sequel.
The detailed proof is provided in Appendix A.1 for clarity.
Lemma 1. Assume that (A, B, C ) satisfies Assumption 1 and λ ∈ C
is a given scalar such that Re {λ} > 0. Let F = −µBT P (γ ) where
P (γ ) = P > 0 is the unique positive definite solution to the following
parametric algebraic Riccati equation (ARE)
(4) AT P + PA − PBBT P = −γ P . (6)
Let H be such that A + HC is Hurwitz, (θ , ϑ) be a pair of constant real
numbers and µ∗ = Re1{λ} .
(1) If τ is constant yet can be arbitrarily large, then for any µ ≥ µ∗ ,
there exists a scalar γ ∗ = γ ∗ (µ, τ , |λ| , H ) > 0 such that the
linear time delay system
ϕ̇(t ) = Aϕ(t ) + λBF ϕ (t − τ ) + θ λBF e (t − τ ) ,

(7)
ė(t ) = (A + HC ) e(t ) − ϑλBF (ϕ (t − τ ) − e (t − τ ))
is asymptotically stable for all γ ∈ (0, γ ∗ ], where F = F eAτ .
(2) If, in addition, all the eigenvalues of A are zero and the delay τ
is possibly unknown, time varying yet bounded uniformly by τ∗ ,
then for any µ ≥ µ∗ , there exists a scalar γ ∗ = γ ∗ (µ, τ∗ ,
|λ| , H ) > 0 such that the linear time-delay system
ϕ̇(t ) = Aϕ(t ) + λBF ϕ (t − τ ) + θ λBFe (t − τ ) ,

(8)
ė(t ) = (A + HC ) e(t ) − ϑλBF (ϕ (t − τ ) − e (t − τ ))
is asymptotically stable for all γ ∈ (0, γ ∗ ].
3. Consensus by the state feedback protocol
In this section we present solutions to Problem 1 by develop-
ing TPF based state feedback protocols. Both delay-dependent and
delay-independent protocols will be established. To deduce our
main results, we first introduce the following lemma.
 B. Zhou, Z. Lin / Automatica 50 (2014) 452–464 455

Lemma 2. The multi-agent system in (1) achieves consensus by the Remark 3. We would like to point out that the predictor feedback
following state feedback protocol based protocol (9) (as well as the observer based protocol given
  in Lemma 3 later) does not require the matrix A to satisfy
N  0
Aτ
 Assumption 1, namely, A can be any square matrix. Moreover, if
ui ( t ) = F e zi (t ) + lij e −As
Buj (t + s) ds , (9) L is exactly known and the relative input ui − uj , i, j ∈ I [1, N]
j =1 −τ
is accessible (we would like to point out that the accessibility of
where F ∈ Rm×n is such that A + λi BF , i ∈ I [2, N], are all Hurwitz. the relative input is indeed assumed in some existing literature, for
example, You & Xie, 2011a), this protocol is implementable, though
Proof. We consider an artificial protocol as computationally expensive.

ui (t ) = Fzi (t + τ ) , i ∈ I [1, N] . (10) We next develop a truncated version of the predictor feedback
based protocol in (9) under Assumption 1. Under this assumption,
Then the closed-loop dynamics of the multi-agent system (1) and there exists a parameterized feedback gain F = F (γ ) : R+ →
the protocol (10) can be represented as, for all t ≥ τ , Rm×n , which is of order 1 with respect to γ , namely (Zhou, Lin, &
ẋ(t ) = (T ⊗ In ) (IN ⊗ A) T −1 ⊗ In x(t )
  Duan, 2011),

+ (T ⊗ In ) (JL ⊗ BF ) T −1 ⊗ In x(t ), 1
 
(11) lim ∥F (γ )∥ = 0, lim ∥F (γ )∥ < ∞. (18)
γ →0+ γ →0+ γ
where we have used (5). The above equation can be rewritten as
Then the predictor feedback based protocol ui (t ), i ∈ I [1, N], itself
χ̇(t ) = (IN ⊗ A) χ (t ) + (JL ⊗ BF ) χ (t ), (12) is ‘‘of order 1’’ with respect to γ , namely,
in which 1
lim ∥ui (t )∥ = 0, lim ∥ui (t )∥ < ∞,
T T γ →0+ γ →0+ γ
χ , χ1T χ2T χN , T − 1 ⊗ In x .
   
··· (13)
∀t ≥ 0, i ∈ I [1, N] . (19)
Since the first column of T is 1N , if limt →∞ ∥χi (t )∥ = 0, ∀i ∈
I [2, N], then it follows from x(t ) = (T ⊗ In ) χ (t ) that xi (t ) →
0
As a result, by virtue of (18) and denoting νi (t ) = F
N
i=1 lij −τ
χ1 (t ) , s(t ), ∀i ∈ I [1, N], as t approaches infinity and the e−As Buj (t + s), we have
consensus is achieved. On the other hand, in view of (12) and (5),
the dynamics of χi (t ), i ∈ I [2, N], obey the following equations 1 1
N
  0
∥νi (t )∥ ≤ lim ∥F (γ )∥
 −As 
lim lij e B
χ̇i (t ) = Aχi (t ) + λi BF χi (t ) + δi BF χi+1 (t ), (14) γ →0+ γ 2
γ →0+ γ j =1 −τ

where i ∈ I [2, N] and χN +1 (t ) ≡ 0. Hence the problem of consen- 1 

uj (t + s) ds

× lim
sus is solved by the protocol (10) as A + λi BF , i ∈ I [2, N], are all γ →0+ γ
Hurwitz. < ∞, (20)
We next show that the artificial protocol (10) is equivalent to N  0 −As
(9). In view of (2), we can write namely, the second term F i=1 lij −τ e Buj (t + s) in (9) is at
  least ‘‘of order 2’’ with respect to γ . This indicates that, no mat-
N 0
ter how large the value of τ is, the distributed term F
N
i=1 lij

ui (t ) = F lij xj (t + τcon ) , i ∈ I [1, N] . (15) −τ
j =1
e−As Buj (t + s) in (9) is dominated by the term F eAτ zi (t ) in (9) and
thus might be safely neglected in ui (t ) when γ is sufficiently small
On the other hand, by using the system equation in (1), we can pre- (Zhou et al., 2012). As a result, the predictor feedback based proto-
dict xj (t + τcon ) from xj (t − τcom ) as col in (9) can be truncated as

0

xj (t + τcon ) = eAτ xj (t − τcom ) +
−τ
by which and (2) the artificial protocol (15) can be further ex-
pressed as (9). The proof is completed. 
Remark 2. Under Assumption 2, it is always possible to find a
matrix F such that A + λi BF , i ∈ I [2, N], are all Hurwitz. In fact, F
can be chosen as any optimal control type feedback gains, namely,
F = −µBT P, where µ is chosen such that
 
1
µ ≥ max , µ∗ (L),
i∈I[2,N] Re {λi }
in which Re {λi } > 0, i ∈ I [2, N], are guaranteed by Assumption 2,
and P solves the ARE AT P + PA − PBBT P = −Q , where Q > 0 is
given. This can be verified by (A + λi BF )H P + P (A + λi BF ) ≤ −Q .
From the proof of Lemma 2 we can see that the protocol in (9) is
obtained by predicting the future states from the past ones. Hence
it will be referred to as predictor feedback based protocol.
ui (t ) = F eAτ zi (t ), i ∈ I [1, N] , (21)
e−As Buj (t + s) ds, (16)
which we refer to as the TPF based protocol.
Remark 4. Compared with the predictor feedback protocol in
(9), the TPF based protocol ui (t ) in (21) possesses the following
advantages:
(1) The TPF based protocol ui (t ) in (21) is independent of the
signals uj , j ∈ I [1, N] , j ̸= i, which is not the case for the
predictor feedback based protocol in (9).
(2) The TPF based protocol ui (t ) in (21) is static, while the predictor
(17) feedback based protocol ui (t ) in (9) is dynamic as it involves
the history information of uj (t ), j ∈ I [1, N] in the interval
[t − τ , t].
(3) The TPF based protocol ui (t ) in (21) does not require the exact
information of L, while the predictor feedback based protocol
ui (t ) in (9) does.
The following theorem shows that the TPF based protocol ui (t )
in (21) indeed solves Problem 1.
456 B. Zhou, Z. Lin / Automatica 50 (2014) 452–464

Theorem 1. Let Assumptions 1 and 2 be satisfied and P (γ ) be the
unique positive definite solution to the parametric ARE (6). Then,
for any bounded delays τcon and τcom that are arbitrarily large and
exactly known, and for any µ ≥ µ∗ (L), there exists a number γ ∗ =
γ ∗ (µ, τ , {|λi |}Ni=2 ) > 0 such that Problem 1 is solved by the TPF based
protocol ui (t ) in (21) where
Remark 6. In the TPF based protocols proposed in Theorems 1
and 2, the graph G (N , E , A) is not necessarily known exactly. In
fact, only the information of the bound on the eigenvalues of L is
required. For example, if it is known that the ith eigenvalue of L lies
in a compact bounded set Ωi , i ∈ I [2, N], then the scalar µ∗ (L) in
Theorems 1 and 2 can be replaced by

F = −µBT P (γ ) , ∀µ ∈ [µ∗ (L), ∞), ∀γ ∈ (0, γ ∗ ].

 
(22) 1
µ (Ω ) =
∗
sup . (28)
λi ∈Ωi , i∈I[2,N ] Re {λi }
Proof. Similarly to the proof of Lemma 2, with the TPF based
protocol in (21), we can show that the consensus problem is solved
if the following series of time-delay systems are asymptotically Remark 7. In the existing literature (see, for example, Lin et al.,
stable 2007, Olfati-Saber & Murray, 2004, Qin et al., 2011, Tian & Liu, 2009
and Yu et al., 2010b), the problem of finding the maximal allowable
χ̇i (t ) = Aχi (t ) + λi BF eAτ χi (t − τ ) delay with a prescribed protocol has been investigated. In this
+ δi BF eAτ χi+1 (t − τ ) , i ∈ I [2, N] , (23) literature, even for multi-agent systems with agents characterized
by a single or double integrator, the allowable delay cannot be
where χN +1 (t ) ≡ 0. In addition, all the states xi (t ), i ∈ I [1, N], arbitrarily large (see, for example, Olfati-Saber & Murray, 2004 and
converge to χ1 (t ), which satisfies χ̇1 (t ) = Aχ1 (t ). Clearly, stability Yu et al., 2010b). Here we have shown in Theorems 1 and 2 that
of (23) is equivalent to the stability of arbitrarily large bounded delays are allowable as long as the gain
in the protocol is adjusted low enough.
χ̇i (t ) = Aχi (t ) + λi BF eAτ χi (t − τ ) , i ∈ I [2, N] . (24)
However, the stability of the series of time-delay systems in (24) Remark 8. It is shown in Munz, Papachristodoulou, and Allgower
follows from Item 1 of Lemma 1 with (θ , ϑ) = (0, 0).  (2011b) that consensus in single-integrator multi-agent systems
can be guaranteed for arbitrary large delays. The same system and
Remark 5. It follows from the proof of Lemma 1 that the norm a similar result are also reported in Liu, Lu, and Chen (2010), where
of the gain F = −µBT P (γ ) decreases as the delay gets larger some mild conditions are established to guarantee the consensus.
and γ ∗ (µ, τ , {λi }Ni=2 ) decreases. Hence the norm of the gain F eAτ Extension of the results in Munz et al. (2011b) to a more general
in the protocol (21) decreases as the delay gets higher if A is case that the agents are characterized by non-identical single-
Lyapunov stable (namely,  all the eigenvalues on the imaginary input–single-output systems having only unstable poles at zero
axis are simple) since eAτ  = 1. If A contains at least one pair of is given in Munz et al. (2012). Theorem 2 can be considered as
imaginary eigenvalues whose algebraic multiplicity is greater than a generalization of these results since the systems considered in
1, numerical simulation also shows that the norm of the gain F eAτ Theorem 2 include the single-integrator system and/or single-
in the protocol (21) decreases as the delay gets larger. Hence, a input–single-output systems as very special cases. On the other
large delay will not lead to large control effort. On the other hand, hand, under the same assumptions made in this paper, delay-
as the term eAτ is very close to the identity matrix for very small dependent protocols are established in Wang et al. (2013) for
delays, the gain F eAτ is very close to F , which is frequently used in the consensus of high-order multi-agent systems with constant
the literature. In this case, our method is comparable to the existing communication delays. However, in that paper the delays are not
approaches. allowed to be arbitrarily large in the case that A has nonzero
In Theorem 1, the delays τcon and τcom should be known exactly, eigenvalues and only constant delays are allowed in the case that
which may not be the case all the time. In the following we present A has only zero eigenvalues.
an alternative delay-independent protocol which does not require
the exact information of τcon and τcom . Remark 9. As pointed out in Munz et al. (2011b), the convergence
rate tends to decrease as the delays increase, in other words,
Theorem 2. Let Assumptions 1 and 2 be satisfied and, in addition, all consensus is reached slower for larger delays. This is also the case
the eigenvalues of A be zero. Let P (γ ) be the unique positive definite for the other theorems in this paper and should be considered as
solution to the parametric ARE (6). Assume that the delays τcon and the inherent trade-off between the size of the allowable delay and
τcom are time-varying, unknown and arbitrarily large, yet bounded, the convergence rate of the consensus.
namely, there exists a scalar τ ∗ < ∞ such that
4. Consensus by an observer based output feedback protocol
sup {|τcon (t )|} + sup {|τcom (t )|} ≤ τ ∗ . (25)
t ∈R t ∈R
In this section, we give solutions to Problem 2 by proposing two
Then, for any µ ≥ µ∗ (L), there exists a number γ ∗ = γ ∗ (µ, τ ∗ , kinds of observer based output feedback protocols with the help of
{|λi |}Ni=2 ) such that Problem 1 is solved by the idea of TPF. To this end, we first introduce a lemma which is a
ui (t ) = Fzi (t ), i ∈ I [1, N] , (26) generalization of Lemma 2 to the observer based output feedback
case.
where
Lemma 3. The multi-agent system in (1) achieves consensus by the
F = −µBT P (γ ) , ∀µ ∈ [µ∗ (L), ∞), ∀γ ∈ (0, γ ∗ ]. (27) following observer based output feedback protocol
N

Proof. The proof is similar to that of Theorem 1 except for the 
use of Item 2 of Lemma 1 with (θ , ϑ) = (0, 0) and τ = τ (t ) , ω̇ ( ) ( )ω ( ) lij uj (t − τ ) − H wi (t ),



 i t = A + HC i t + B
τcon (t ) + τcom (t − τcon (t )). The details are omitted for brevity. 

j =1
N  0
(29)
Aτ
 
A couple of remarks regarding Theorems 1 and 2 are given in 
 u ( t ) = F e ω (t ) + F e−As Blij uj (t + s) ds,
 i i
order.

j =1 −τ
 B. Zhou, Z. Lin / Automatica 50 (2014) 452–464 457

where i ∈ I [1, N] , F ∈ Rm×n is such that A + λi BF , i ∈ I [2, N], are I [1, N], which together with limt →∞ ∥ei (t )∥ = 0, i ∈ I [1, N],
all Hurwitz and H ∈ Rn×p is such that A + HC is Hurwitz. In addition, indicate that limt →∞ ∥ωi (t )∥ = limt →∞ ∥ri (t ) − ei (t )∥ = 0, i ∈
the observer states ωi (t ) satisfy limt →∞ ∥ωi (t )∥ = 0, i ∈ I [1, N]. I [1, N].
The proof is finished by noting that the artificial protocol ui (t )
Proof. Consider the following new state variable defined in (38) is equivalent to the protocol ui (t ) defined in (29)
N with the help of Eq. (31). 

ri (t ) = lij xj (t − τcom ) , ∀t ≥ τ , i ∈ I [1, N] , (30)
Remark 10. The introduction of the new state variable ri (t ) de-
j =1
fined in (30) is to put the term B i=1 lij uj (t − τ ) into the dynamic
N
on which the dynamics of the multi-agent system (1) can be equation (31) so that an observer in the form of (29) can be con-
rewritten as, for t ≥ τ , structed to obtain the clean error system (37). On the other hand,
N
we can see that the protocol ui (t ) defined in (29) is also based on
the predictor feedback, which is similar to the state feedback case.

ṙi (t ) = Ari (t ) + B lij uj (t − τ ) , i ∈ I [1, N] . (31)
For this reason, we call (29) an observer based output predictor
j =1
feedback protocol.
In addition, the information for the feedback given in (3) reduces
We next establish a truncated version of the observer based
to
output predictor feedback protocol in (29). Similarly to the state
wi (t ) = Cri (t ), i ∈ I [1, N] , ∀t ≥ τ . (32) feedback case, if F (γ ) is such that (18) is satisfied, then the term

The relation in (30) can be written in compact form N 

 0
F e−As Blij uj (t + s) ds, (42)
r (t ) = (L ⊗ In ) x (t − τcom ) j =1 −τ

= (T ⊗ In ) (JL ⊗ In ) T −1 ⊗ In x (t − τcom ) ,
 
(33) in (29) is at least ‘‘of order 2’’ with respect to γ and can thus be
neglected provided γ is sufficiently small. On the other hand, as
which, by denoting
the term B i=1 lij uj (t − τ ) is at least ‘‘of order 1’’ with respect
N
ρ = T − 1 ⊗ In r , χ = T −1 ⊗ In x, to γ and the other three terms in the ωi dynamics in (29) are
   
(34)
independent of γ , it can also be neglected if γ is small enough.
can be further rewritten as Therefore, the observer based predictor feedback protocol in (29)
ρ(t ) = JL χ (t − τcom ) , ∀t ≥ τ . (35) can be truncated as
ω̇i (t ) = (A + HC ) ωi (t ) − H wi (t ),

It follows from (35) and (5) that ρ1 (t ) ≡ 0, ∀t ≥ τ , and (43)
ui (t ) = F eAτ ωi (t ), i ∈ I [1, N] ,
ρi (t ) = λi χi (t − τcom ) + δi χi+1 (t − τcom ) , (36)
which will be referred to as the observer based TPF protocol.
where t ≥ τ , i ∈ I [2, N], and χN +1 (t ) ≡ 0. Now, by denoting Compared with the observer based predictor feedback protocol
ei (t ) = ri (t ) − ωi (t ), i ∈ I [1, N], we get from (29) and (31) that (29), the observer based TPF protocol (43) also possesses the three
advantages listed in Remark 4.
ėi (t ) = (A + HC ) ei (t ), i ∈ I [1, N] , ∀t ≥ τ , (37)
Similarly to the state feedback case, the following theorem
which implies that limt →∞ ∥ei (t )∥ = 0, i ∈ I [1, N]. shows that the observer based TPF protocol (43) indeed solves
Now consider the following artificial protocol Problem 2 for arbitrarily large yet bounded delay τ .

ui (t ) = Fri (t + τ ) − F eAτ ei (t ), ∀t ≥ 0, (38) Theorem 3. Let Assumptions 1 and 2 be satisfied, H be such that A +
HC is Hurwitz, and P (γ ) > 0 be the unique positive definite solution
by which the equation in (31) can be written as to the parametric ARE (6). Then for any delays τcon and τcom that are
N exactly known and can be arbitrarily large yet bounded and for any
lij F rj (t ) − eAτ ej (t − τ ) , µ ≥ µ∗ (L), there exists a number γ ∗ = γ ∗ (µ, τ , {|λi |}Ni=2 , H ) such

ṙi (t ) = Ari (t ) + B
 
(39)
j =1
that Problem 2 is solved by (43), where ωi (0) ∈ Rn and

where i ∈ I [2, N] , ∀t ≥ τ . The above equation can be expressed F = −µBT P (γ ) , ∀µ ∈ [µ∗ (L), ∞), ∀γ ∈ (0, γ ∗ ]. (44)
in compact form
T
Proof. By denoting ~i (t ) = xTi (t ), ωiT (t ) , we can write the

ṙ (t ) = (IN ⊗ A) r (t ) + (L ⊗ BF ) r (t )
closed-loop multi-agent system consisting of (1) and (43) as
− L ⊗ BF eAτ e (t − τ ) ,
 
(40)
~(
˙ t ) = (IN ⊗ A1 ) ~(t ) + (IN ⊗ A2 ) ~ (t − τcon )
which, via the transformation in (34), is equivalent to − (L ⊗ A3 ) ~ (t − τcom ) , (45)
ρ̇1 (t ) = Aρ1 (t ),

where
ρ̇i (t ) = (A + λi BF ) ρi (t ) + δi BF ρi+1 (t ) (41)
BF eAτ
   
A 0
 −λi BF eAτ εi (t − τ ) − δi BF eAτ εi+1 (t − τ ) , A1 , , A2 ,
0
,
0 A + HC 0 0
(46)
where i ∈ I [1, N] , ε(t ) = T −1 ⊗ In e(t ), ρN +1 (t ) ≡ 0 and
   
0 0
εN +1 (t ) ≡ 0. As limt →∞ ∥e(t )∥ = 0, ρ1 (t ) ≡ 0, and A + λi BF , i ∈ A3 , .
HC 0
I [2, N], are all Hurwitz, it follows from (41) that limt →∞ ∥ρi (t )∥ =
0, i ∈ I [1, N]. Thus, we have from (36) that limt →∞ ∥χi (t )∥ = By denoting χ (t ) = T −1 ⊗ I2n ~(t ), we can express the dynamics
 
0, i ∈ I [2, N]. Consequently, by the property of T , we get from in (45) as
(34) that xi (t ) → χ1 (t ), ∀i ∈ I [1, N] as t approaches infinity,
namely, the consensus is achieved. Moreover, it follows from χ̇ (t ) = (IN ⊗ A1 ) χ (t ) + (IN ⊗ A2 ) χ (t − τcon )
limt →∞ ∥ρi (t )∥ = 0, i ∈ I [1, N], that limt →∞ ∥ri (t )∥ = 0, i ∈ − (JL ⊗ A3 ) χ (t − τcom ) , (47)
458 B. Zhou, Z. Lin / Automatica 50 (2014) 452–464

which, in view of the structures of A1 , A2 and A3 , is equivalent to based output feedback protocol

χ̇1 (t ) = A1 χ1 (t ) + A2 χ1 (t − τcon ) , ω̇i (t ) = (A + HC ) ωi (t ) − H wi (t ),

 
(58)
χ̇i (t ) = A1 χi (t ) + A2 χi (t − τcon ) − λi A3 χi (t − τcom ) (48) ui (t ) = F ωi (t ), i ∈ I [1, N] ,
−δi A3 χi+1 (t − τcom ) , i ∈ I [2, N] ,
where ωi (0) ∈ Rn and
where χN +1 (t ) ≡ 0. If limt →∞ ∥χi (t )∥ → 0, ∀i ∈ I [2, N], then, by
the property of T , we see that F = −µBT P (γ ) , ∀µ ∈ [µ∗ (L), ∞), ∀γ ∈ (0, γ ∗ ]. (59)

lim ∥~i (t ) − χ1 (t )∥ = 0, ∀i ∈ I [1, N] . (49) Proof. The proof is quite similar to the proof of Theorem 3 and
t →∞
is omitted for brevity. The only difference is that τcom should be
Notice that the first equation in (48) can be written as
assumed to be constant so that the transformation (54) (or the
transformation (30)) is valid. 
χ̇11 (t ) = Aχ11 (t ) + BF eAτ χ12 (t − τcon ) ,

(50)
χ̇12 (t ) = (A + HC ) χ12 (t ), Remark 11. Differently from the observer based output predictor
T feedback protocol (29), which makes the error dynamics and the
where χ1 (t ) = χ11 (t ), χ12 (t ) . Since the second subsystem in
 T T
dynamics of the original systems decoupled, as indicated by (37)
(50) is exponentially stable, it follows from (49) that, for all i ∈
and (39), the error dynamics and the dynamics of the original
I [1, N], systems under the observer based TPF protocol (43) are coupled,
lim ∥xi (t ) − χ11 (t )∥ = 0, lim ∥ωi (t )∥ = 0, (51) as indicated by (56). Hence an intricate Lyapunov analysis of the
t →∞ t →∞ stability of the closed-loop multi-agent system has to be developed
which implies that the consensus is achieved and the observer is in the proof of Lemma 1.
asymptotically stable. Therefore, in the remaining of the proof, we
need only to prove the stability of the second systems in (48), or Remark 12. We point out that we can obtain an explicit formula-
equivalently, the stability of tion of the functions s(t ) associated with Theorems 1–4. We how-
ever have not presented it here for the sake of brevity. In addition,
χ̇i (t ) = A1 χi (t ) + A2 χi (t − τcon ) − λi A3 χi (t − τcom ) , (52) as all the eigenvalues of A are on the imaginary axis, we can show
that there exists a number k > 0 such that
where i ∈ I [2, N].
T   x (θ ) 
  
By denoting χi (t ) = ϕi1 (t ), φi1T (t ) , ∀i ∈ I [2, N], we can
T
  ∗
∥s(t )∥ ≤ k 1 + t N −1 sup u (θ)
  + ∥ω(0)∥ (60)
write the systems in (52) as θ∈[−τ ,0]

ϕ̇i1 (t ) = Aϕi1 (t ) + BF eAτ φi1 (t − τcon ) , where N ∗ is the maximal algebraic multiplicity of the eigenvalues

(53)
φ̇i1 (t ) = (A + HC ) φi1 (t ) − λi HC ϕi1 (t − τcom ) , of A.
In the case that τ = τcon = τcom = 0, namely, the dynamics of
i φi1 (t ) and
where i ∈ I [2, N]. Let φi (t ) = λ− 1
the multi-agent system (1) becomes
ϕi (t ) = ϕi1 (t − τcom ) , i ∈ I [2, N] . (54) 
ẋi (t ) = Axi (t ) + Bui (t ),
(61)
Then system (53) simplifies to, for all i ∈ I [2, N], yi (t ) = Cxi (t ), i ∈ I [1, N] ,

and the partial information for feedback given in (3) becomes

ϕ̇i (t ) = Aϕi (t ) + λi BF eAτ φi (t − τ ) ,

(55)
φ̇i (t ) = (A + HC ) φi (t ) − HC ϕi (t ), N

wi ( t ) = lij yj (t ), i ∈ I [1, N] , (62)
which, with ei (t ) = ϕi (t ) − φi (t ), can be further rewritten as, for j =1
any i ∈ I [2, N],
we obtain the following corollary of Theorem 3.
ϕ̇i (t ) = Aϕi (t ) + λi BF eAτ ϕi (t − τ ) − λi BF eAτ ei (t − τ ) ,


ė (t ) = (A + HC ) ei (t ) + λi µBF eAτ
 i
× (ϕi (t − τ ) − ei (t − τ )) .
The stability of (56) then follows from Item 1 of Lemma 1 where
(θ, ϑ) = (−1, −1). The proof is finished. 
If the delays in the inputs and communication network are
unknown and/or time-varying, we can obtain the following
result, which can be regarded as the output feedback version of
Theorem 2.
(56) Corollary 1. Let Assumptions 1 and 2 be satisfied, H ∈ Rn×p be such
that A + HC is Hurwitz, µ be any positive number such that (17) is
satisfied, and P (γ ) > 0 be the unique positive definite solution to the
parametric ARE (6). Then for any µ ≥ µ∗ (L), there exists a number
γ ∗ = γ ∗ (µ, {|λi |}Ni=2 , H ) such that the consensus of the multi-agent
system in (61)–(62) is achieved by the following observer based
output feedback protocol
ω̇i (t ) = (A + HC ) ωi (t ) − H wi (t ),

(63)
ui (t ) = F ωi (t ), i ∈ I [1, N] ,

Theorem 4. Let Assumptions 1 and 2 be satisfied, H be such that where ωi (0) ∈ Rn and
A + HC is Hurwitz, and, in addition, all the eigenvalues of A be zero. Let
P (γ ) > 0 be the unique positive definite solution to the parametric F = −µBT P (γ ) , ∀µ ∈ [µ∗ (L), ∞), ∀γ ∈ (0, γ ∗ ]. (64)
ARE (6). Assume that τcon and τcom are unknown and arbitrarily large,
yet bounded, τcon is possibly time-varying and τcom is constant. Let Remark 13. Consensus of the multi-agent system in (61)–(62) by
dynamic output feedback was solved in Seo et al. (2009) where a
sup {|τcon (t )|} + τcom ≤ τ < ∞. ∗
(57)
t ∈R dynamic output feedback protocol in the form of

Then for any µ ≥ µ∗ (L), there exists a number γ ∗ = γ ∗ (µ, τ ∗ , ω̇i (t ) = (A + HC + BF ) ωi (t ) − H wi (t ),


{|λi |}Ni=2 , H ) such that Problem 2 is solved by the following observer (65)
ui (t ) = F ωi (t ), i ∈ I [1, N] ,
 B. Zhou, Z. Lin / Automatica 50 (2014) 452–464 459

is proposed, where F = −BT P with P (ε) > 0 being the solution to

AT P + PA − τ0 PBBT P + ε In = 0, ε ∈ (0, 1], (66)

with τ0 = mini∈I[2,N] {Re {λi }}. Our dynamic protocol (63) in Corol-
lary 1 possesses a simpler structure than the dynamic protocol (65)
as we do not require that the term corresponds to the term BF ωi (t )
in (65). More importantly, as seen in the Appendix and Example 1,
the analytical expression of the gains in (63) can be obtained by
solving a linear Lyapunov equation, whereas the ARE in (66) has to
be solved numerically for each given value of ε .

The following result is a corollary of Lemma 3.

Corollary 2. Let Assumption 2 be satisfied, (A, B) be controllable and

(A, C ) be observable. Then the consensus of the multi-agent system
in (61)–(62) is achieved by the following observer based output
feedback protocol
 Fig. 1. Weighted communication network topology.
 N
ω̇i (t ) = (A + HC ) ωi (t ) + lij BF ωj (t ) − H wi (t ),


(67) The network in Fig. 1 clearly contains a directed spanning tree. In
j =1
ui (t ) = F ωi (t ), fact, the eigenvalue set of L can be computed asλ(L) ={0, 3.5698,


3.2151 ± 1.3071i}. We choose µ = maxi∈I[2,4] 1
= 0.3310.
where F ∈ Rm×n is such that A + λi BF , i ∈ I [2, N], are all Hurwitz Re {λi }

and H ∈ Rn×p is such that A + HC is Hurwitz. In addition, the observer

states ωi (t ) satisfy limt →∞ ∥ωi (t )∥ = 0, i ∈ I [1, N]. We construct the observer based output TPF protocol to solve
the consensus problem. By solving the parametric ARE (6), the
Remark 14. In Li et al. (2010) the following observer based output feedback gain defined in (44) can be computed as F eAτ = −µ [f1i ] ,
feedback protocol i ∈ I [1, 4], where

2γ 3 cos (τ ω0 ) γ4

N   
2γ 2 − sin (τ ω0 ) ,

ω̇i (t ) = (A + BF ) ωi (t ) + lij HC ωj (t ) − H wi (t ),

 f11 = −
ω0 2ω02

(68)


j =1


ui (t ) = F ωi (t ), 2γ 3 sin (τ ω0 ) γ4

 
  
+ 2γ 2 − cos (τ ω0 ) ,

f12 =


ω0 2ω02


is proposed to solve the consensus problem for the multi-agent


2γ 3 τ cos (τ ω0 ) γ4
  
system (61)–(62), where F ∈ Rm×n is such that A + BF is Hurwitz

− 2γ 2 − τ sin (τ ω0 )

f13 =


and H ∈ Rn×p is such that A +λi HC , i ∈ I [2, N], are all Hurwitz. It is
 4 ω0 2ω02
(72)
very interesting to notice that our observer based output feedback γ γ2

cos (τ ω0 ) − 4γ sin (τ ω0 ) ,

protocol (67) in Corollary 2 can be regarded as a dual form of (68).
 + +4
2ω0 ω0


 3


2γ 3 τ sin (τ ω0 ) γ4

  
γ 2
τ cos (τ ω0 )

5. Two numerical examples f = + 2 −

14

ω0 2ω02



γ γ

4 2

  
sin (τ ω0 ) + 4γ cos (τ ω0 ) .

Example 1. We consider four identical agents whose dynamics is
 + +4
ω03
ω0
given by
Let the observer gain H be chosen as
ω0
 
0 1 0
−ω0 0 0 1
ẋi (t ) =  xi ( t )
T
37.2391 −0.6667 29.5892 ,

0 0 0 ω0  H = 11 (73)
0 0−ω0 0
  which is such that λ (A + HC ) = {−4, −3, −2 ± i}. The observer
0
0 based output TPF protocol can then be constructed according
+   ui (t − τcon ) , (69) to (43).
0 √
1 For the simulation purpose, we choose ω0 = 2/ 3, γ = 0.1,
and the initial conditions for the four agents as x1 (θ ) = [3, −4,
yi (t ) = −1 0 xi (t ), i ∈ I [1, 4] ,
 
0 0 (70) 2, 4]T , x2 (θ ) = [−2, 3, −3, 2]T , x3 (θ ) = [4, −2, 2, 3]T , x4 (θ ) =
where ω0 > 0 is a constant. It follows that Assumption 1 is fulfilled [2, 3, −3, 2]T , and ui (θ ) = 0, i ∈ I [1, 4] , ∀θ ∈ [−τ , 0]. The
since all the eigenvalues of A are at ±ω0 i whose algebraic multi- initial conditions for the observer are respectively assigned as
plicity is 2, (A, B) is controllable and (A, C ) is observable. Assume ω1 (0) = [6, −3, 4, 1]T , ω2 (0) = [4, −3, 5, 1]T , ω3 (0) = [−4, 4,
that τcon = 32 s and τcom = 12 s, and consequently, τ = 2s. Let the 7, 2]T and ω4 (0) = [5, 2, −4, −2]T .
communication network be given in Fig. 1, which is characterized The differences between the states of Agent 1 and those of the
by the Laplacian other agents are recorded in Fig. 2. The observer states are also
  plotted in Fig. 3. In these figures, xij , i, j ∈ I [1, 4], denotes the jth
3 0 −2 −1
elements of xi (the state of Agent i), and ωij denote the jth elements
−2 2 0 0 
L= . (71) of ωi . From these figures we clearly see that the consensus is
−1 −1 2 0 
0 0 −3 3 achieved by this observer based output TPF protocol.
460 B. Zhou, Z. Lin / Automatica 50 (2014) 452–464

Fig. 2. Example 1: Differences between the states of Agent 1 and those of the other agents.

Fig. 3. Example 1: States of the observer.

Example 2. We consider four agents characterized by the topology shown in Fig. 1. We assume that the delays in the
    communication network and inputs are respectively characterized
0 1 0 0 0 0 by
0 0 1 0 1 0 √ 
ẋi (t ) =  x (t ) +  u (t − τcon (t )) , (74)
0 0 0 0 i 0 1 i 1 t 1
0 0 0 0 1 1 τcon (t ) = + cos2
, τcom = , (76)
2 2 2
 
−1 0 0 1 which is such that |τcon (t )|+τcom ≤ τ ∗ = 2, ∀t ∈ R. We construct
yi (t ) = x (t ), i ∈ I [1, 4] . (75)
0 −1 0 1 i the observer based output TPF protocol to solve the consensus
problem.
Notice that the associated system matrix A is in a Jordan canonical
form. It follows that A has only zero eigenvalues whose geometry By solving the parametric ARE (6), the feedback gain F defined
multiplicity is 2 and maximal algebraic multiplicity is 3. Moreover, in (58) can be computed as in Box I.
we have that (A, B) is controllable and (A, C ) is observable. Let Here we also choose µ = 0.3310 as in Example 1 and γ =
the network between these four agents be again characterized by 0.075. By applying the function place in Matlab, we get the
 B. Zhou, Z. Lin / Automatica 50 (2014) 452–464 461

Fig. 4. Example 2: Differences between the states of Agent 1 and those of the other agents.

γ4 2γ 3 γ (γ − 1) γ
 
γ2 + 1
 γ +2 1 2 γ2 + 1 γ 2 + 1  
2
F = −µ   (77)
 γ3 3+γ γ γ 2γ2 + 3 + 2γ + γ3 γ2 γ2 + 2 
 
−
γ2 + 1 γ2 + 1 γ2 + 1 γ2 + 1
Box I.

observer gain H such that λ (A + HC ) = {−4, −3, −2 ± i} as Appendix

T A.1. Proof of Lemma 1
18.0416 12.7979 5.0134 11.1312

H = . (78)
−5.0836 −0.5969 3.2795 −4.6864 Proof of Item 1. By the variation of constants formula, we obtain
from the first equation in (7) that, for all t ≥ 2τ ,
For the simulation purpose, we choose the initial conditions for  t
these four agents as the same as in Example 1. The differences Aτ
ϕ(t ) = e ϕ (t − τ ) + eA(t −s) (−λµBBT PeAτ ϕ (s − τ )
between the states of Agent 1 and those of the other agents and t −τ
the observer states are respectively recorded in Figs. 4 and 5.
From these figures we clearly see that the consensus of these four + θ λµBBT PeAτ e (s − τ ))ds, (79)
agents is also achieved by the proposed observer based output TPF substitution of which into the first system in (56) gives, for all
protocol. t ≥ 2τ ,
ϕ̇(t ) = A − λµBBT P ϕ(t ) − θ λµBBT PeAτ e (t − τ )
 
6. Conclusions
− (λµ)2 BBT P (π1 (t ) − π2 (t )) , (80)
This paper studies the consensus problem for multi-agent
where π1 (t ) and π2 (t ) are defined as
systems with agents characterized by high-order linear systems
with time delays existing in both the communication network   t
and inputs of the agents. Under the condition that the open- π (t ) = eA(t −s) BBT PeAτ ϕ (s − τ ) ds,

 1

t −τ
loop dynamics of the agents is at most polynomially unstable and  t (81)
the communication topology for the agents contains a directed A(t −s) Aτ
π2 (t ) = θ BB Pe e (s − τ ) ds.
T

 e
spanning tree, the truncated predictor feedback approach is t −τ
established to solve the consensus problems. It was proven that
The time-derivative of the Lyapunov function V1 (ϕ(t )) = ϕ H (t )
if the delays are exactly known, the consensus problems can be
P ϕ(t ) along the trajectories of (80) satisfies
solved by both full state feedback and observer based output
feedback protocol for arbitrarily large yet bounded delays. On the V̇1 (ϕ(t )) ≤ −γ ϕ H (t )P ϕ(t ) + (1 − 2µRe{λ}
other hand, the communication delays and input delays can be + 3κ |λ|4 µ4 )ϕ H (t )PBBT P ϕ(t )
allowed to be time-varying, arbitrarily large yet bounded, and nγ
even unknown, if the open-loop dynamics of the agents only + (π H (t )P π1 (t ) + π2H (t )P π2 (t )
contain zero eigenvalues. Numerical examples were worked out κ 1
+ θ 2 eH (t − τ ) eA τ PeAτ e (t − τ )),
T
to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches. (82)
462 B. Zhou, Z. Lin / Automatica 50 (2014) 452–464

Fig. 5. Example 2: States of the observer.

where we have used Lemma 4 in Appendix A.2. On the other hand, nγ θ 2 (n−1)γ τ H
by the Jensen inequality (Gu, 2000) and Lemma 4 in Appendix A.2, V̇3 (et ) = e e (t )Pe(t )
κ
we can compute nγ θ 2 (n−1)γ τ H
− e e (t − τ ) Pe (t − τ ) . (89)
 t
κ
π1H P π1 ≤ (nγ )2 τ e2(n−1)γ τ ϕ H (s)P ϕ(s)ds. (83) On the other hand, if we choose κ = 1
and µ ≥ 1
= µ∗ ,
3|λ|4 µ4 Re{λ}
t −2 τ
then
 t
2(n−1)γ τ
π H
2 P π2 ≤ θ (nγ ) τ e
2 2
e (s)Pe(s)ds.
H
(84) 1 − 2µRe {λ} + 3κ |λ|4 µ4 ≤ 0. (90)
t −2τ
Then we get from (85) and (88)–(90) that
Hence the inequality in (82) simplifies to
V̇1 (ϕ(t )) + V̇2 (ϕt , et ) + V̇3 (et )
V̇1 (ϕ(t )) ≤ −γ ϕ (t )P ϕ(t ) + 1 − 2µRe{λ} + 3κ |λ| µ
H 4 4 nγ
   
≤ − γ − 2τ (nγ )2 τ e2(n−1)γ τ ϕ H (t )P ϕ(t )
nγ κ
× ϕ H (t )PBBT P ϕ(t ) + (nγ )2 τ e2(n−1)γ τ
κ nγ θ 2
2τ (nγ )2 τ e2(n−1)γ τ + e(n−1)γ τ eH Pe.

t t + (91)
κ
  
× ϕ H (s)P ϕ(s)ds + θ 2 eH (s)Pe(s)ds
t −2τ t −2τ Now choose another Lyapunov function V4 (e(t )) = eH (t )Qe(t )
nγ θ 2 (n−1)γ τ H where Q > 0 satisfies
+ e e (t − τ ) Pe (t − τ ) . (85)
κ (A + HC )T Q + Q (A + HC ) = −In . (92)
Let V2 (ϕt , et ) and V3 (et ) be respectively defined as Then by using the second equation in (7) and Lemma 4 in
Appendix A.2, we have
 2τ  t
nγ 1
V2 (ϕt , et ) = (nγ )2 τ e2(n−1)γ τ ϕ (l)P ϕ(l)
 H
κ V̇4 (e(t )) ≤ − ∥e(t )∥2 + 4c (ϕ H (t − τ ) P ϕ (t − τ )
0 t −s 2
+ θ 2 eH (l)Pe(l) dlds,

(86)
+ eH (t − τ ) Pe (t − τ )), (93)
nγ θ 2 (n−1)γ τ t H

τ
where c = c (γ ) = |λ| µ B Q B nγ e( )γ ϑ . Choose finally

2 2 T 2 
 n − 1 2
V3 (et ) = e e (s)Pe(s)ds, (87)
κ t −τ the Lyapunov functional
t t
  
from which we can compute
V5 (ϕt , et ) = 4c ϕ H (s)P ϕ(s)ds + eH (s)Pe(s)ds , (94)
t −τ t −τ
nγ
V̇2 (ϕt , et ) = 2τ (nγ )2 τ e2(n−1)γ τ (ϕ H (t )P ϕ(t ) and it follows from (93) that
κ
nγ
+ θ 2 eH (t )Pe(t )) − (nγ )2 τ e2(n−1)γ τ 1
V̇4 (e(t )) + V̇5 (ϕt , et ) ≤ − ∥e(t )∥2 + 4c ϕ H (t )P ϕ(t )

κ
 t 2
ϕ (s)P ϕ(s) + θ 2 eH (s)Pe(s) ds,
 H 
× (88) + eH (t )Pe(t ) .

(95)
t −2τ
 B. Zhou, Z. Lin / Automatica 50 (2014) 452–464 463

Now choose the total Lyapunov function as where we have again used Lemma 4 in Appendix A.2. Let
V (ϕt , et ) = V1 (ϕ(t )) + V2 (ϕt , et ) + V3 (et ) 
V (ϕ(t ), e(t )) = Vϕ (ϕ(t )) + ∥P ∥Ve (e(t )) . (107)
+ γ (V4 (e(t )) + V5 (ϕt , et )) , (96)
Then under the condition that
whose time-derivative, in view of (91) and (95), satisfies
V (ϕ (t + s) , e (t + s)) < ηV (ϕ(t ), e(t )) ,
1
V̇ (ϕt , et ) ≤ −γ f (γ ) ϕ (t )P ϕ(t ) −
H
γ g (γ ) ∥e(t )∥ ,
2
∀s ∈ −2τ ∗ , 0 ,
 
(97) (108)
2
where f (γ ) and g (γ ) are respectively related with where η > 1 is any prescribed number, we have
 
n ∥P ∥Ve (e (t + s)) , Vϕ (ϕ (t + s))
f (γ ) = 1 − 2τ (nγ )2 τ e2(n−1)γ τ max
κ 
− 4µ2 |λ|2 BT Q 2 B nγ e(n−1)γ τ ϑ 2 , ≤ V (ϕ (t + s) , e (t + s))

(98)
< ηV (ϕ(t ), e(t )) , ∀s ∈ −2τ ∗ , 0 .
 
n 2(n−1)γ τ
(109)
g (γ ) = 1 − 4θ τ 2
(nγ ) τ e
2
∥P ∥
κ
It follows from P ≤ ∥P ∥ In ≤ λ (Q ) Q and (109) that V̇ϕ (ϕ(t )) in
P ∥ ∥
n
− 2θ 2 e(n−1)γ τ ∥P ∥ min
κ  (103) and V̇e (e(t )) in (106) can be respectively continued as
− 8µ2 |λ|2 BT Q 2 B nγ e(n−1)γ τ ϑ 2 .

(99)
V̇ϕ (ϕ(t )) ≤ −γ ϕ H (t )P ϕ(t ) + γ h1 (γ ) ηV (ϕ(t ), e (t )) , (110)
As limγ →0+ P (γ ) = 0, there clearly exists a positive number
γ ∗ = γ ∗ (µ, τ , {|λ|}Ni=2 , H ) such that f (γ ) ≥ 12 , g (γ ) ≥ 12 , ∀γ ∈ 1
V̇e (e(t )) ≤ − ∥e(t )∥2 + γ h2 (γ ) ηV (ϕ(t ), e(t )) , (111)
(0, γ ∗ ]. Therefore it follows from (97) that 2
1 1 where h1 (γ ) and h2 (γ ) are respectively defined as
V̇ (ϕt , et ) ≤ − γ ϕ H (t )P ϕ(t ) − γ ∥e(t )∥2 ,
2 4 2n  2 2 2
∀µ ∈ [µ∗ , ∞), ∀γ ∈ (0, γ ∗ ], ∀t ≥ 2τ , (100) h1 (γ ) = 9τ∗ n γ + 3τ∗2 |λ|2 µ2 n2 γ 2
κ  √ √
θ 2 ∥P ∥ θ 2 ∥P ∥
 
and the asymptotic stability then follows from the Lyapunov × 1+ + , (112)
stability theorem. The proof is completed. λmin (Q ) λmin (Q )
√
Proof of Item 2. For any t ≥ 2τ∗ , integrating both sides of (8) from
 
∥P ∥
h2 (γ ) = 4ϑ n |λ| µ B Q B .
2

2 2 T 2 

t − τ to t gives ϕ (t − τ ) = ϕ(t ) − δ(t ), where 1+ (113)
λmin (Q )
 t
δ(t ) = (Aϕ(s) − λBF ϕ (s − τ ) + θ λBFe (s − τ )) ds. (101) It follows from (110)–(111) that
t −τ
V̇ (ϕ(t ), e(t )) ≤ −γ (1 − h (γ ) η) V (ϕ(t ), e(t ))
Then we can rewritten the first equation in system (8) as  
1
ϕ̇(t ) = (A − λBF ) ϕ(t ) + λBF (δ(t ) + θ e (t − τ )) , (102) − −γ ∥P ∥Ve (e(t )) , (114)
2
along whose trajectories the time-derivative of Vϕ (ϕ(t )) = ϕ H (t ) √
where h (γ ) = h1 (γ ) + ∥P ∥h2 (γ ). Hence, it follows from
P ϕ(t ) can be evaluated as
limγ →0 h (γ ) = 0 and (114) that there exists a number γ ∗ =
2nγ  γ ∗ (µ, τ∗ , {|λi |}Ni=2 ) ∈ 0, 12 such that
 
V̇ϕ (ϕ(t )) ≤ −γ ϕ H (t )P ϕ(t ) + δ H (t )P δ(t )
κ
1
+ θ 2 eH (t − τ ) Pe (t − τ ) , V̇ (ϕ(t ), e(t )) ≤ − γ V (ϕ(t ), e(t )) ,

(103)
2
where we have used Lemma 4 in Appendix A.2 and noticed that, if ∀µ ∈ [µ∗ , ∞), ∀γ ∈ (0, γ ∗ ], ∀t ≥ 2τ∗ . (115)
κ = 21 2 , then
|λ| µ
The stability of (8) then follows from the Razumikhin stability
1 − 2µRe{λ} + κµ |λ| ≤ 0, 2 2
∀µ ∈ [µ , ∞). ∗
(104) theorem (Hale, 1977). The proof is completed.

By using Lemma 4 in Appendix A.2, we can compute

A.2. Properties of solutions to a parametric ARE
 t
δ (t )P δ(t ) ≤ 3τ∗ |λ| µ n γ
H 2 2 2 2
(ϕ (s − τ ) P ϕ (s − τ )
H

t −τ
In this subsection we recall the following results from Zhou,
Lin, and Duan (2010), Zhou et al. (2012) regarding properties of
+ θ e (s − τ ) Pe (s − τ ))ds
2 H

 t solutions to the parametric ARE (6).

+ 9τ∗ n2 γ 2 ϕ H (s)P ϕ(s)ds. (105)

Lemma 4. Assume that the matrix pair (A, B) ∈ Rn×n , Rn×m is
 
t −τ
controllable and all the poles of A are on the imaginary axis. Then the
Now compute the time-derivative of Ve (e(t )) = eH (t )Qe(t ), where parametric ARE (6) has a unique positive definite solution P (γ ) =
Q solves (92), along the trajectories of the second equation in W −1 (γ ), where W (γ ) is the unique positive definite solution to
system (8) as γ
+ A + γ2 In W
 T 
the following Lyapunov equation W A + I
2 n
1 = BBT . Moreover, limγ →0+ P (γ ) = 0, ddγ P (γ ) > 0, ∀γ > 0,
V̇e (e(t )) ≤ − ∥e(t )∥2 + 4ϑ 2 nγ |λ|2 µ2 BT Q 2 B
 
2 T
tr BT P (γ ) B = nγ , P (γ ) BBT P (γ ) ≤ nγ P (γ ) , eA t P (γ ) eAt ≤
 
× ϕ H (t − τ ) P ϕ (t − τ )

e(n−1)γ t P (γ ). In particular, if all the eigenvalues of A are zero, then
+ eH (t − τ ) Pe (t − τ ) , AT PA ≤ 3 (nγ )2 P.

(106)
464 B. Zhou, Z. Lin / Automatica 50 (2014) 452–464
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Bin Zhou is a professor of the Department of Control
Science and Engineering at the Harbin Institute of
Technology. He was born in Luotian County, Huanggang,
Hubei Province, PR China on July 28, 1981. He received
the Bachelor’s degree, the Master’s Degree and the Ph.D.
degree from the Department of Control Science and
Engineering at Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin,
China in 2004, 2006 and 2010, respectively. He was
a Research Associate at the Department of Mechanical
Engineering, University of Hong Kong from December
2007 to March 2008, a Visiting Fellow at the School of
Computing and Mathematics, University of Western Sydney from May 2009 to
August 2009, and a Visiting Research Scientist at the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, University of Virginia from July 2012 to August 2013. He
joined the School of Astronautics, Harbin Institute of Technology in February 2009.
His current research interests include constrained control, time-delay systems,
nonlinear control, and control applications in astronautic engineering. In these
areas, he has published about 100 papers, over 70 of which are in archival journals.
He is a reviewer for American Mathematical Review and is an active reviewer for a
number of journals and conferences. He was selected as the ‘‘New Century Excellent
Talents in University’’, the Ministry of Education of China in 2011. He received
the ‘‘National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award’’ in 2012 from the Academic
Degrees Committee of the State Council and the Ministry of Education of PR China.
He is currently an associate editor on the Conference Editorial Board of the IEEE
Control Systems Society.
Zongli Lin is a professor of Electrical and Computer
Engineering at University of Virginia. He received his
B.S. degree in mathematics and computer science from
Xiamen University, Xiamen, China, in 1983, his Master
of Engineering degree in automatic control from Chinese
Academy of Space Technology, Beijing, China, in 1989, and
his Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering
from Washington State University, Pullman, Washington,
in 1994. His current research interests include nonlinear
control, robust control, and control applications. He was
an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Automatic
Control (2001–2003), IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics (2006–2009) and
IEEE Control Systems Magazine (2005–2012). He was an elected member of the
Board of Governors of the IEEE Control Systems Society (2008–2010) and has served
on the operating committees and program committees of several conferences.
He currently chairs the IEEE Control Systems Society Technical Committee on
Nonlinear Systems and Control and serves on the editorial boards of several journals
and book series, including Automatica, Systems & Control Letters, Science China
Information Sciences, and Springer/Birkhauser book series Control Engineering.
He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the
International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) and the American Association
for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).