IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATIC CONTROL, VOL. 68, NO.
2, FEBRUARY 2023
Fixed-Time Consensus Tracking for Multi-Agent Systems With a
Nonholomonic Dynamics
Wen Mi , Li Luo , and Shouming Zhong
Abstract—In this article, we investigate the control strategy of
fixed-time leader-following consensus for chained-form systems
with matched disturbances. A new decentralized observer is de-
signed under a directed topology to estimate the leader state in
a fixed time for each follower. Then, a novel control protocol is
developed to track the estimated leader state in a prescribed finite
time. Different from existing results, the bound we derive for the
setting time does not depend on the initial conditions even in
the presence of matching perturbations. Moreover, the chattering
phenomenon of control output is effectively reduced as signum
function gets smaller in the proposed method.
Index Terms—Chained-form dynamics, fixed-time consensus,
multiagent systems, tracking consensus.
I. INTRODUCTION
One of the basic problems of multiagents is the leader-following
consensus problem, that is, by designing distributed controllers for
a group of followers to track the leader state [1], [2]. In order to
improve the convergence rate, the issue of finite-time leader-following
consensus is widely explored [3], [4]. In general, the upper bound of
its convergence time depends on the initial conditions of the system.
If the initial conditions are not obtained, it may bring great difficulties
in applications. Then, the fixed-time stability strategy problem arises,
it was first studied in [5]. Recently, it has been applied to the theme
of consensus tracking, in which the estimation of convergence time is
independent of the initial conditions [6]–[9].
Fixed-time consensus protocols were studied for first-order [9],
[10], second-order [11], and higher order linear dynamics [8], but it is
inadequate to describe all of the dynamics of complex agents. Few con-
sensus protocols considered nonlinear multiagent systems such as [12]
and [13] for chained-form systems that can simulate the dynamics of
robots. In [15], for a nonholonomic multiagent systems, a switching
strategy was introduced to deal with the fixed-time consensus problem,
considering the undirected communication structure. In general, it is
a challenging problem to design distributed observers and establish
stable conditions with asymmetric interaction under the directed com-
munication graph [8], [10], [14]. Different from the systems in [8]
Manuscript received 4 July 2021; accepted 25 January 2022. Date of
publication 4 February 2022; date of current version 30 January 2023.
This work was supported in part by the Department of Guangzhou
Science and Technology under Grant 202002030472 and in part by the
National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61771004
and Grant 61873305. Recommended by Associate Editor G. Notarste-
fano. (Corresponding author: Li Luo.)
Wen Mi and Shouming Zhong are with the School of Mathe-
matical Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology
of China, Chengdu 611731, China (e-mail: mathmw@uestc.edu.cn;
zhongsm@uestc.edu.cn).
Li Luo is with the Guilin Changhai Company, Ltd., Guilin 541001,
China (e-mail: 1505340486@qq.com).
Color versions of one or more figures in this article are available at
https://doi.org/10.1109/TAC.2022.3148312.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAC.2022.3148312
0018-9286 © 2022 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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1161
that did not take disturbances and uncertainties into account, the non-
holonomic chained-form systems are more difficult and general due to
the unknown dynamics uncertainties. The nonholonomic chained-form
systems generally consist of two subsystems, i.e., a low-order one and
a second-order or high-order one [2], which are coupled by a common
input. Furthermore, if the system composes of two second-order sub-
systems, what can we do to make it achieve the consensus in a fixed
time?
This article is concerned with the fixed-time leader-following con-
sensus problem for multiagent systems under a directed topology. The
main contributions are as follows.
1) We design a new decentralized observer to estimate the leader state
in a fixed time for each follower. And a different derivative method
is used to estimate the leader state.
2) We develop a novel control protocol to track the estimated leader
state in prescribed finite time. The chattering phenomenon of
control output is effectively reduced.
The following notations will be used throughout this article. Define
m 1
y n = (y m ) n , where y ∈ R, m, n > 0. For a vector y = [y1 , . . . , yN ]T ,
yi ∈ R, denote sign(y) = [sign(y1 ), . . . , sign(yN )]T with the signum
 1
function sign(·). The p-norm is yp = ( N p p
i=1 |yi | ) . For a ≥ 0, de-
fine ya = [sign(y1 )|y1 |a , . . . , sign(yN )|yN |a ]T . For all A ∈ Rn×n ,
λmin (A) represent the smallest eigenvalue of the matrix A.
This article is arranged as follows. In Section II, preliminaries and
problem formulation are stated. After that, main results are introduced
in Section III. Simulations are given in Section IV. Finally, Section V
concludes this article.
II. PRELIMINARIES AND PROBLEM FORMULATION
A. Graph Theory
Consider N + 1 connected agents with one leader and N fol-
lowers. Among the followers, the communication topology can be
modeled by a directed graph G = (V, E), where the node set V =
{v1 , v2 , . . . , vN } corresponds to the associated followers, and the
edge set E = {(vi , vj )|vi = vj , vi , vj ∈ V} consists of communica-
tion links among agents. Particularly, a directed edge (vi , vj ) indicates
that the agent i can directly transfer the state information to the agent j,
but not vice versa. A connected graph means that it contains a directed
spanning tree, i.e., there is at least one agent with a connected path
to any other agents. Mathematically, the following two matrices are
used to characterize the interaction graph G: the adjacency matrix A =
[ai,j ] ∈ RN ×N with weights ai,j > 0 if (vj , vi ) ∈ E and ai,j = 0
otherwise; the Laplacian matrix L = [li,j ] ∈ RN ×N with li,j = −ai,j

for i = j, and li,i = N j=1 ai,j . Assume that no self-loop occurs, i.e.,
(vi , vi ) ∈
/ E, thus, ai,i = 0. For an undirected graph, ai,j = aj,i .
The communication topology among N + 1 agents is denoted as Ḡ.
In addition, the leader only sends out its own information and does
not receive information from any other agents. When the ith agent
can obtain the information of the leader, we set bi > 0, otherwise
 1162 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATIC CONTROL, VOL. 68, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2023

bi = 0. Then, a new matrix M is defined as M = L + B, where Set the fixed-time stabilization to be

B = diag{b1 , b2 , . . . , bN }.
ỹk,i = ŷk,i − yk,0 , (i = {1, . . . N }, k = {1, . . . , 4}) (3)
B. Problem Statement where ŷk,i (k ∈ {1, . . . , 4}) represent the estimation of the leader state
Consider a class of chained-form nonholonomic multiagent systems yk,0 of the ith follower.
consisted of N followers, indexed as the agent i, where i ∈ {1, . . . , N }, The decentralized observer for each follower i = 1, 2, . . . , N are
and a leader (which could be virtual), indexed as 0. The dynamics of given as follows:
the leader is given as follows: q 2p−q
ŷ˙ 1,i = ŷ2,i − α1 ψ1,i
2p−q
− β1 ψ1,iq
ẏ1,0 (t) = y2,0 (t)
q 2p−q

ẏ2,0 (t) = u1,0 (t) ŷ˙ 2,i = − α2 ψ2,i

2p−q
− β2 ψ2,iq − γ1 sign (ψ2,i )
q 2p−q
ẏ3,0 (t) = y4,0 (t)y2,0 (t)
ŷ˙ 3,i = ŷ4,i ŷ2,i − α3 ψ3,i
2p−q
− β3 ψ3,iq
ẏ4,0 (t) = u2,0 (t) (1) q 2p−q
ŷ˙ 4,i = − α4 ψ4,i
2p−q
− β4 ψ4,iq − γ2 sign (ψ4,i ) . (4)
where y0 = [y1,0 , y2,0 , y3,0 , y4,0 ]T ∈ R4 and u0 = [u1,0 , u2,0 ]T ∈
R2 is the state and control input of the leader, respectively. The Then, we have the following result.
dynamics of the ith follower is described as Theorem 1: Given Assumptions 1 and 2, if p and q are positive
odd integers with q < p, the coefficients αk , βk > 0, (k = 1, . . . 4) and
ẏ1,i (t) = y2,i (t)
γ1 ≥ ρ̄1 , γ2 ≥ ρ̄2 . Then, the estimation error converges to zero in a
ẏ2,i (t) = u1,i (t) + d1,i (t) finite time T1 with the observer (4), and an upper bound of T1 is
 
ẏ3,i (t) = y4,i (t)y2,i (t) πp θ1 θ2 θ3 θ4
Tmax 1 = max + , +
ẏ4,i (t) = u2,i (t) + d2,i (t) (2) (p − q)λmin (U ) w1 w2 w3 w4
T 4
where yi = [y1,i , y2,i , y3,i , y4,i ] ∈ R is the system state of the ith q q(p−q) q q

follower, and ui = [u1,i , u2,i ]T ∈ R2 is the control input of the ith where θk = (hmax αk 2p−q
2p
) p N p(2p−q) + (hmax βk 2p ) + 21− p
q p

q p−q q q
follower to be designed. The matched external perturbation or uncertain (hmax αk 2p−q
2p
)2− p N p + 21− p (hmax βk 2p
q 2− p
) , wk = min{αk2 ,
dynamics is given by di = [d1,i , d2,i ]T ∈ R2 . 2q−2p
βk2 N q },(k=1,...,4), U = HM + M T H > 0, H = diag{h1 ,
Remark 1: The considered model is originated from the kinemat-
h2 , . . . , hN } is a positive diagonal matrix, h = [h1 , h2 , . . . , hN ]T =
ics of wheeled-mobile robots, and then, transformed into the system
(M T )−1 1N , and hmax = max{h  1 , h2 , . . . , hN }.
described by (1) and (2) [15].
Proof: Denote ψk,i = N j=1 ai,j (ŷk,i − ŷk,j ) + bi (ŷk,i − yk,0 )
Definition 1: For the system described by (1) and (2), it is said to
and set ψk = [ψk,1 , ψk,2 , . . . , ψk,N ]T and ỹk = [ỹk,1 , ỹk,2 ,
achieve fixed-time leader–follower consensus if there exists a suitable
. . . , ỹk,N ]T , hence, ψk = M ỹk . Let M = [M1 , M2 , . . . , MN ]T ,
controller ui (t) such that
 where Mi = [mi,1 , mi,2 , . . . , mi,N ]. Then, ψk,i can also be expressed

limt→T ||yi (t) − y0 (t)|| = 0 as ψk,i = N j=1 mi,j ỹk,j .
||yi (t) − y0 (t)|| = 0 ∀t > T According to equation ψk = M ỹk , (k = 1, . . . , 4), we know that
when ψ2 converges to zero, ỹ2 converges to zero, since M is invertible.
for all i ∈ {1, 2, . . ., N }, where T is bounded by Tmax that is indepen-
Therefore, each follower accurately estimates y2,0 . In what follows,
dent of initial states.
we prove that ψ2 converges to zero in a fixed time by considering the
The main purpose of this article is to derive an observer-based
Lyapunov function
controller ui (t) that enables the system to achieve fixed-time leader-
following consensus. We have the following assumptions. 
N  
2p − q 2p
2p−q q 2p
q
Assumption 1: The graph Ḡ is directed and fixed. It contains a V1 (t) = hi α2 ψ2,i + β2 ψ2,i .
2p 2p
spanning tree, and the agent labeled 0 is the root. i=1
Assumption 2: The control input of the leader cannot be obtained Its time derivative is
by the followers, but its neighboring agents know the upper bounds ρ̄1
N  
and ρ̄2 of control input, which are defined as follows: |u1,0 (t)| ≤ ρ̄1 < q
2p−q
2p
q −1
V̇1 (t) = hi α2 ψ2,i + β2 ψ2,i
∞, |u2,0 (t)| ≤ ρ̄2 < ∞, with ρ̄1 , ρ̄2 ∈ R+ .
i=1
Assumption 3: For each follower, the upper bounds of the matched
external perturbation or uncertain dynamics di (t) hold: |d1,i (t)| ≤ 
N  q 2p


2p−q q −1
d¯1,i < ∞, |d2,i (t)| ≤ d¯2,i < ∞, with d¯1,i , d¯2,i ∈ R+ . × mi,j −α2 ψ2,j − β2 ψ2,j − γ1 sign(ψ2,j ) − ẏ2,0
j=1
Assumption 4: Assume that the leader state y2,0 (t) satisfies the
following condition: y2,0 (t) = 0 ∀t ∈ [Tm , TM ], where Tm < TM are  q 2p
T  q 2p

−1 −1
known positive constants. = − α2 ψ22p−q + β2 ψ2q HM α2 ψ22p−q + β2 ψ2q


N  q

III. MAIN RESULTS 2p−q
2p
q −1
+ hi α2 ψ2,i + β2 ψ2,i
A. Fixed-Time Observer i=1

Because the leader state is only received by some followers, the 

N

decentralized observer is designed such that each follower can estimate × mi,j (−γ1 sign(ψ2,j ) − ẏ2,0 ) . (5)
the leader state in a prescribed time. j=1

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 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATIC CONTROL, VOL. 68, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2023 1163

 2− pq
q 
The last term is simplified by N
q 2p − q
f˜(ψ2 ) ≤ 21− p hmax α2 N 1− p |ψ2,i |2

N  q 2p
 2p i=1
2p−q q −1
hi α2 ψ2,i + β2 ψ2,i
i=1  2− pq 
N

2p−q
q
q q

+2 1− p
hmax β2 |ψ2,i |2 . (9)

N
2p i=1
× mi,j (−γ1 sign(ψ2,j ) − ẏ2,0 )
j=1 Similarly, together with [8, Lemma 2], it leads to

N  q 2p

2p−q
q
q2 q(2p−q)
+2p2 −2qp

≤ − γ1 hi α2 |ψ2,i | 2p−q + β2 |ψ2,i | q −1 mi,i 

N 
N

i=1
f (ψ2 ) ≥ α22 |ψ2,i |2 +ι |ψ2,i |2
i=1 i=1

N  q 2p

2p−q q −1
2p−q
− γ1 hi α2 ψ2,i + β2 ψ2,i 2q−2p 
N q

i=1 + β22 N q |ψ2,i | 2

(10)
⎛ ⎞ i=1

N
×⎝ mi,j sign(ψ2,j )⎠ where
⎧
2(2qp−q 2 −p2 )
j=i,j=1 ⎨ 2(q 2 +2p2 −2qp)
2α2 β2 N q(2p−q) , ≥2
  ι= q(2p−q) (11)

N
q 2p ⎩ 2α β , 1< 2(q 2 +2p2 −2qp)
< 2.
+ ρ̄1 bi hi α2 |ψ2,i | 2p−q + β2 |ψ2,i | q −1 2 2 q(2p−q)
i=1
The classification considers the following two cases.
N 2q−2p

N   2 2
i=1 |ψ2,i | ≥ 1, there holds f (ψ2 ) ≥ β2 N
1) When q
q 2p
≤ − γ1 hi α2 |ψ2,i | 2p−q + β2 |ψ2,i | q −1 mi,i N 2p−q N q N
2 2
( i=1 |ψ2,i | ) q , hence, ( i=1 |ψ2,i | ) 2p−q ≤ ( i=1
i=1 2p−q N  2p−q
2
|ψ2,i | ) q , and i=1 |ψ2,i | ≤ ( N
2 2
i=1 |ψ2,i | )
q . Then, we

N  q 2p
 2q−2p
+γ1 (bi + li,i )hi α2 |ψ2,i | 2p−q + β2 |ψ2,i | q −1 = 0. (6) have f (ψ2 ) β2 N
≥ 2 θ2
q
.
fˆ(ψ2 )+f˜(ψ2 )
i=1 N 
2) When 2
i=1 |ψ2,i | ≤ 1, there is f (ψ2 ) ≥ α22 ( N i=1
Based on [5, Lemma 1] together with (6), there is q  2p−q  q
|ψ2,i |2 ) 2p−q , then ( N 2
i=1 |ψ2,i | )
q ≥( N 2 2p−q
i=1 |ψ2,i | ) ,
 T N N q
1 q 2p
−1
2
i=1 |ψ2,i | ≤ (
2 2p−q
i=1 |ψ2,i | ) . We have fˆ(ψf)+
(ψ2 )
˜ ≥
V̇1 (t) ≤ − λmin (U ) α2 ψ22p−q + β2 ψ2q f (ψ ) 2 2
2 α2
2
.
  θ2
w2 ˆ
+ f˜(ψ2 )). Thus
q 2p
× α2 ψ22p−q + β2 ψ2q
−1
(7) As a consequent, f (ψ2 ) ≥ θ2
(f (ψ2 )

λmin (U )wk  q q

where U is as stated in Theorem 1. V̇1 (t) ≤ − V1 (t) p + V1 (t)2− p .
2θ2
Set the following three notations:
⎧ By applying [5, Lemma 1], we can further get that the equilibrium
⎪
⎪ N 2q 2(q 2 +2p2 −2qp)
of V1 = 0 converges to zero in a fixed time T̂max2 = (p−q)λπpθ 2
.
⎪
⎪ f (ψ2 ) = (α2 ψ2,i + 2α2 β2 ψ2,i q(2p−q)
2 2p−q min (U )w2
⎪
⎪ Hence, ψ2 is fixed-time stable. As a result, it can prove that each
⎪
⎪ i=1
⎪
⎪ 2(2p−q) follower can accurately estimates y2,0 in T̂max2 . The next task is to
⎪
⎨ +β22 ψ2,i q )
N  pq prove that ψ1 = 0 can be established within a fixed time. Consider the
⎪ ˆ  2p−q
2p
q
2p
Lyapunov function
⎪
⎪ f (ψ2 ) = 2p−q
hi ( 2p α2 ψ2,i + 2p β2 ψ2,i ) q
⎪
⎪  
⎪
⎪ 
i=1
2− pq N
2p − q 2p 2p
⎪
⎪ N 2p 2p
V2 (t) = 2p−q
+
q q
⎪
⎪ ˜ 2p−q 2p−q q q hi α1 ψ1,i β1 ψ1,i . (12)
⎩ f (ψ 2 ) = h i ( 2p
α ψ
2 2,i + β ψ
2p 2 2,i
) . 2p 2p
i=1 i=1

By using [8, Lemma 2], it can be obtained that Denote u∗1,i = ŷ2,i and
⎧ N
2p−q
q

⎪  2p p−q 
N
⎪
⎪ hi α2 2p−q 2p−q
ψ2,i ≤ hmax α2 2p−q N 2p−q ∗
= − α1 ai,j (ŷ1,i − ŷ1,j ) + bi (ŷ1,i − y1,0 )
⎪
⎪ 2p 2p v1,i
⎪
⎨ i=1 j=1
N p
×( |ψ2,i |2 ) 2p−q (8)
2p−q
⎪
⎪ i=1
⎪ N
⎪ 
N q
⎪
⎪  q
2p
q 
N p
− β1 ai,j (ŷ1,i − ŷ1,j ) + bi (ŷ1,i − y1,0 ) (13)
⎩ hi β2 2p q
ψ2,i ≤ hmax β2 2p ( |ψ2,i |2 ) q .
i=1 i=1 j=1

Following inequalities (8), there is and ŷ˙ 1,i = u∗1,i + v1,i

∗
. Its derivative along (13) is given as
  pq
q
 
2p − q q(p−q) 
N 2p−q 
N q 2p
q −1
fˆ(ψ2 ) ≤
2p−q
hmax α2 N p(2p−q) |ψ2,i | 2 V̇2 (t) = hi α1 ψ1,i + β1 ψ1,i
2p i=1 i=1

 q N

q p 
N

+ hmax β2 |ψ2,i |2 × ai,j (u∗1,i − u∗1,j ) + bi (u∗1,i − y2,0 )

2p i=1 j=1

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 1164 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATIC CONTROL, VOL. 68, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2023

  N

N q
2p−q
2p
q −1
Because ∗ ∗ ∗
j=1 ai,j (u2,i − u2,j ) + bi (u2,i − y4,0 y2,0 ) = 0 when
+ hi α1 ψ1,i + β1 ψ1,i t > Tmax 1 . Further computation gives
i=1

λmin (U )w4  q q


N V̇4 (t) ≤ − V4 (t) p + V4 (t)2− p . (20)
× ∗
ai,j (v1,i − ∗
v1,j ) + ∗
bi v1,i . (14) 2θ4
j=1
Set T̂max3 = (p−q)λπpθ 3
min (U )w3
. So, ỹ3 converges to zero within Tmax 3 +
Tmax 4 .
Furthermore, by noticing t > T̂max2 , we obtain
Summing up the discussion, we can conclude that each follower

N accurately estimates the leader state in a fixed-time bounded by Tmax 1 .
ai,j (u∗1,i − u∗1,j ) + bi (u∗1,i − y2,0 ) = 0. (15) Then, the proof is complete.
j=1 Remark 2: During the process of proof, we use a different derivative
method at the stage of estimating the leader state by followers. Com-
V̇2 (t) pared to the existing method of taking partial derivative [8] and [14],
it greatly reduces the upper bound of the estimated time. Compared
 T   to [8], the coefficients of the observer are considered to take different
q 2p q 2p
−1 −1 values.
= − α1 ψ12p−q + β1 ψ1q HM α1 ψ12p−q + β1 ψ1q

B. Fixed-Time Controller
λmin (U )w1  q q

≤− V2 (t) p + V2 (t)2− p . (16) In this part, a prescribed finite-time leader-following control strategy
2θ1 is proposed to guarantee the consensus of the chained-form multiagent
πpθ1 systems under directed topologies. When t > 2Tmax 1 , according to
Set T̂max2 = (p−q)λmin (U )w1
. Therefore, it can be concluded that the
Theorem 1, it can be obtained that
estimation error ỹ1 converges to zero within T̂max1 + T̂max2 . Also, we
establish the Lyapunov function for ỹ4,i as ŷi = [ŷ1,i , ŷ2,i , ŷ3,i , ŷ4,i ]T = y0 . (21)


N   Then, the tracking errors are designed as
2p − q 2p
2p−q q 2p
q
V3 (t) = hi α4 ψ4,i + β4 ψ4,i . (17) ek,i = yk,i − ŷk,i = yk,i − yk,0 − ỹk,i (i = 1, . . . , N, k = 1, 2, 3, 4).
i=1
2p 2p
Accordingly, the tracking error dynamics can be given as
After a similar reasoning with V1 (t), it can be obtained that ψ4
converges to zero in a fixed-time bounded by T̂max4 = (p−q)λπpθ 4
min (U )w4
. (Σ1 )
ė1,i = e2,i
The remaining task is to study ỹ3 , we consider ė2,i = u1,i + d1,i − u1,0


N  
2p − q 2p
2p−q q 2p
q ė3,i = e4,i y2,0 + (e4,i + y4,0 )e2,i
V4 (t) = hi α3 ψ3,i + β3 ψ3,i . (18) (Σ2 )
i=1
2p 2p ė4,i = u2,i + d2,i − u2,0 .

Set u∗2,i = ŷ4,i ŷ2,i and Then, we have the following result.
Theorem 2: Under Assumptions 1–4 and the conditions of Theorem

2p−q
q
1 for the multiagent system (1) and (2). The controller of subsystem Σ1

N
∗
v2,i = − α3 ai,j (ŷ3,i − ŷ3,j ) + bi (ŷ3,i − y3,0 ) is
⎧
j=1 ⎪
⎪ 0 ∀t ≤ 2Tmax 1
⎨ (n1 +3m1 e1,i 2 )e2,i 1

2p−q u1,i = − 1 −σi sign(s1,i )− n2 s1,i 1− µ (22)

N q ⎪
⎪ 2(|Δ1 | +|e2,i |)
2
⎩ 1
1+ µ
− β3 ai,j (ŷ3,i − ŷ3,j ) + bi (ŷ3,i − y3,0 ) . −m2 s1,i  ∀t > 2Tmax 1
j=1
with the sliding surface
The time derivative of V4 (t) is given as 1
s1,i = e2,i + e2,i 2 + n1 e1,i + m1 e1,i 3  2 (23)

N  
2p−q
q
q
2p
−1 and the controller of the subsystem Σ2 is
V̇4 (t) = hi α3 ψ3,i + β4 ψ3,i ⎧
i=1 ⎪
⎪ 0 ∀t≤ Ts
⎪
⎪

⎪
⎨− 1 (n +3m1 e3,i 2 )ξi
e4,i ẏ2,0 + 1 + δi sign(s2,i )

N
u2,i =
y2,0 1
2(|Δ2 | 2 +|ξi 
|)
× ai,j (u∗2,i − u∗2,j ) + bi (u∗2,i − ẏ3,0 ) ⎪
⎪ 1 1
⎪
⎪ −n2 s1,i 1− µ − m2 s1,i 1+ µ ∀t ∈ (Ts , TM ]
j=1 ⎪
⎩
−δ̄i sign(e4,i ) ∀t > TM

N  q 2p

2p−q q −1 with the sliding surface
+ hi α3 ψ3,i + β3 ψ3,i
1
i=1 s2,i = e4,i y2,0 + e4,i y2,0 2 + n1 e3,i + m1 e3,i 3  2 (24)


N
where
∗ ∗ ∗
× ai,j (v2,i − v2,j ) + bi v2,i . (19)
j=1 Δ1 = e2,i 2 + n1 e1,i + m1 e1,i 3

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 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATIC CONTROL, VOL. 68, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2023 1165

Δ2 = e4,i y2,0 2 + n1 e3,i + m1 e3,i 3

ξi = e4,i y2,0 , n1 , n2 , m1 and m2 are positive constants, μ > 1,
set σi ≥ d¯1,i + ρ̄1 , δi ≥ ζ(d¯2,i + ρ̄2 ), and ζ = maxt∈[Ts ,TM ] y2,0 (t),
δ̄i = δζi . The switching time is explicitly defined as

Ts = 2Tmax 1 + Tmax 2 + Tmax 3 (25)

√ √
πμ 2 2 2 2
where Tmax 2 = √ and Tmax 3 =
2 n 2 m2
+ √
n1
√
m1
. Then, the systems
is prescribed finite-time stable and the settling time T2 is estimated as
T2 ≤ TM = 2Tmax 1 + 2Tmax 2 + 2Tmax 3 . (26)
Fig. 1. Directed interaction topology for the leader-following consen-
Proof: For the subsystem Σ1 , set a Lyapunov function V5 (t) = sus.
|s1,i |, then
V̇5 (t)
1

|Δ1 | 2 + |e2,i | n1 + 3m1 e1,i 2 Step 1: Design the decentralized observer according to (4) by select-
= sign(s1,i ) 1 ė2,i + 1 e2,i ing p, q, and αk , βk .
|Δ1 | 2 2|Δ1 | 2
 Step 2: Calculate the upper bound of the estimation error T1 .
1
|Δ1 | 2 + |e2,i | Step 3: Select the appropriate parameters to calculate the switching
= 1 − σi + (d1,i − u1,0 )sign(s1,i ) time Ts , which divide the system into two coupled second-
|Δ1 | 2
order subsystems. The fixed-time stabilization of the system

1 1
is solved in two steps.
1− µ 1+ µ
− (n2 |s1,i | + m2 |s1,i | ) Remark 3: When n1 , m1 , and μ satisfy certain conditions, the
settling time T2 can be estimated by a smaller conservative bound.
|Δ1 | 2 + |e2,i |  
1
1 1
Moreover, the chattering in the control input is reduced as the signum
≤ − 1 n2 |s1,i |1− µ + m2 |s1,i |1+ µ function gets smaller.
|Δ1 | 2
Remark 4: Compared with the existing works in this topic in recent
1
1− µ 1
1+ µ years, there are many novelties in this article. It is the first time to study
≤ − n 2 V5 − m 2 V5 . (27)
the prescribed finite-time consensus tracking problem for multiple
Use [5, Lemma 1] again, it is clear that s1,i = 0 for all t > 2Tmax 1 + uncertain chained-form systems with dynamic leader in a directed
Tmax 2 . topologies. The main novelties also include the following:
In sliding mode, i.e., s1,i = 0, the dynamics reduces to 1) in [6] and [11], only linear multiagent systems are studied;
2) in [12], the authors focus on undirected networks, while we con-
n1 e1,i + m1 e1,i 3 1
ė1,i = − 2 . (28) sider directed case;
2 3) our controllers constructed on the directed network structure are
Consider V6 (t) = |e1,i |. Taking derivative of V6 (t) along with the different from [15];
system trajectories obtains 4) compared with [17], the achievement of multiagent system consen-
n m1 3  12 sus in this article is robust against bounded uncertain disturbances;
1
V̇6 (t) = − V6 + V . (29) 5) compared to [8] and [14], we use a different derivative method to
2 2 6
estimate the leader state for followers.
According to [5], there is e1,i = 0 for t > Ts . Then, if e1,i = 0 and Our method greatly reduces the upper bound of the estimated time,
s1,i = 0, then e2,i = 0. thus it can be applied in existing methods.
Then, we consider the subsystem Σ2 for t ∈ (Ts , TM ]. According
to Assumption 4, we can set ξi = e4,i y2,0 . Hence, for t > Ts , the
subsystem Σ2 becomes IV. NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS
ė3,i = ξi In this section, an example is presented to verify the validity of the
ξ˙i = e4,i ẏ2,0 + y2,0 (u2,i + d2,i − u2,0 ).
proposed method.
(30)
As shown in Fig. 1, it is assumed that the directed communication
The derivation is similar to the previous subsystem Σ1 , we can get graph G is composed of N = 6 followers indexed by 1 to 6 and one
e3,i = 0 and e4,i = 0 with t ∈ (Ts , TM ]. leader indexed by 0. The communication state between agents are
Choose a Lyapunov function V7 (t) = |e4,i |, then we have described in the following Laplacian matrix L and the matrix B:
V̇7 (t) = sign(e4,i )(−δ̄i sign(e4,i ) + d2,i − u2,0 )
⎡ ⎤
0.2 −0.2 0 0 0 0
≤ −δ̄i + d¯2,i + ρ̄2 ≤ 0. (31) ⎢−0.4
⎢ 1.2 −0.8 0 0 0 ⎥⎥
It is easy to get that e
4,i (t) = 0 with t > TM from e4,i (TM ) = 0, ⎢ ⎥
⎢ 0 0 1.75 −1 0 −0.75⎥
and then, e3,i (t) = 0 with t > TM from e3,i (TM ) = 0. One could find L=⎢
⎢ 0
⎥
that the controller u2,i is used to resist the influence of uncertain items ⎢ 0 −1.5 1.5 0 0 ⎥⎥
⎢ ⎥
d2,i and u2,0 . The proof is completed. ⎣ 0 0 0 0 0.8 −0.8 ⎦
The method can be briefly summarized as follows. −0.5 0 0 0 −0.5 1

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 1166 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATIC CONTROL, VOL. 68, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2023

Fig. 2. Estimation errors for the first initial value. (a) Estimation er- Fig. 3. Estimation errors for the second initial value. (a) Estimation
rors: y1,i − y1,0 (b) Estimation errors: y2,i − y2,0 (c) Estimation errors: errors: y1,i − y1,0 (b) Estimation errors: y2,i − y2,0 (c) Estimation errors:
y3,i − y3,0 (d) Estimation errors: y4,i − y4,0 . y3,i − y3,0 (d) Estimation errors: y4,i − y4,0 .

⎡ ⎤
0 0 0 0 0 0 The initial leader state is randomly selected as y0 (0) =
⎢0 0⎥
⎢ 4 0 0 0 ⎥ [3, 2, 2, 0.5]T . The leader control input and the unknown per-
⎢ ⎥
⎢0 0 0 0 0 0⎥ turbation are set as u0 = [0.1 sin(t), −0.5 cos(0.5t)]T and di =
B=⎢
⎢0
⎥.
[0.2 sin(y1,i ), 0.3e−t ]T , respectively. Computation shows that ρ̄1 =
⎢ 0 0 0 0 0⎥⎥
⎢ ⎥ 0.1, ρ̄2 = 0.5, d¯1,i = 0.2, and d¯2,i = 0.3. Hence, Assumptions 2 and
⎣0 0 0 0 1 0⎦
3 are fulfilled.
0 0 0 0 0 0

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 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATIC CONTROL, VOL. 68, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2023
Fig. 4. Control input for the first initial value. (a) Control input: u1,i
(b) Control input: u2,i .
We select suitable observer parameters αk = βk = 1, w0 = 1, γ1 =
0.1, and γ2 = 0.5. Let q = 5 and p = 7. In addition, the controller
parameters are chosen as follows: σi = 0.3, δi = 0.8, δ̄i = 1.76, μ =
2, and n1 = m1 = 8 and n2 = m2 = 4. Then, it can be calculated that
Tmax 1 = 2424 s, Tmax 2 = 0.78 s, and Tmax 3 = 2 s.
We show control results in different initial conditions. The first
initial value for six agents is set as y1 (0) = [4, −2, 3, −1]T , y2 (0) =
[1, 2, −1, 0]T , y3 (0) = [6, −2, 9, −2]T , y4 (0) = [5, −1, 2, 0]T ,
y5 (0) = [6, 0, −3, 1]T , and y6 (0) = [2, 0.5, 0.5, 0.25]T . The
evolution of the estimation error for each follower is depicted
in Fig. 2. It reveals that the leader-following consensus is
reached before 4.2 s. To verify the characteristics of the proposed
prescribed finite-time controller, the second initial state is presented,
i.e., y1 (0) = [8, −4, 6, −2]T , y2 (0) = [2, 4, −2, 0]T , y3 (0) =
[12, −4, 18, −4]T , y4 (0) = [10, −2, 4, 0]T , y5 (0) = [12, 0, −6, 2]T ,
and y6 (0) = [4, 1, 1, 0.5]T . The simulation results are displayed in
Fig. 3. Note that the consensus is achieved at about 4.3 s. The results
under two different initial conditions indicate that the dependence of
the settling time on the initial conditions is weak. The results show
that the proposed controller can make the tracking errors converge to
zero in a prescribed time.
To show the effectiveness of our proposed controller in terms of
chattering compared to the controller in [15], with the same initial
values, a comparison study is performed in Figs. 4 and 5. It can be seen
that chattering in terms of control output is reduced by our proposed
new controller.
V. CONCLUSION
In this article, we studied the fixed-time consensus problems of
multiple chained-form systems with matched perturbations. A new
observer is given to ensure that the leader state is estimated by the
followers in a prescribed finite time. A decentralized observer-based
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1167
Fig. 5. Control input in [15] for the second initial value. (a) Control
input: u1,i (b) Control input: u2,i .
controller is developed to track the leader state in a fixed time. It
should be noted that the proposed controller reduces chattering of the
control output. Feasibility and effectiveness of these results are also
demonstrated by a numerical example.
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