Distributed-Observer-Based Output Regulation of Heterogeneous Nonlinear Multi-Agent Systems

This note studies the output regulation problem for a class of heterogeneous nonlinear multi-agent systems under the directed topology. By introducing the internal model to each controlled agent, the problem is first converted into the distributed stabilization of a group of transformed augmented subsystems. A novel kind of distributed observer is further designed for each subsystem. By sharing the internal estimations, the observers reconstruct certain unmeasurable information of the subsystems collaboratively. This appealing feature provides certain flexibility to tackle the heterogeneity and uncertainty of the subsystems, and simplifies the relevant distributed stabilization problem into the decentralized partial-state feedback design, which is finally solved for each subsystem separately.