High order robust fast finite time containment control for multi-agent systems

This paper studies the problem of robust containment with trivial sensitivity to both initial conditions and communication topology for multi-agent systems. In this way, based on the homogeneity property of the dynamic systems, a new nonlinear high order sliding surface for containment problem is proposed. This sliding surface has a fast finite time dynamics which causes remarkably reduction of containment sensitivity to the multi-agent initial conditions and communication topology. Accordingly, a high order fast finite time containment control (HOFFT-CC) protocol is established and the containment of multiple agents to a convex hull is realized. The proposed framework solves the fast containment problem for high order dynamics that are subjected to the external disturbance and furthermore, for both directed and undirected graph topology. Moreover, because of decoupling the agents’ dynamics and converting the multi-agent problem to some single agent problems, the structure of the proposed method is simpler and more straightforward in comparison with previous works. The finite time stability of the closed loop multi-agent systems based on the homogeneity theory and Lyapunov theorem, is analyzed and proved. The proof is produced throughout the negative degree homogeneity property of the closed loop dynamics along with asymptotical stability. In addition, simulation for a general third order multi-agent system in a two-dimensional space is accomplished and the results demonstrate the trivial sensitivity of containment to both initial conditions and communication topology.