Fixed-Time Connectivity-Preserving Distributed Average Tracking for Multiagent Systems

This brief studies the fixed-time average tracking problem for multiagent systems under communication constraints, in which each agent has a limited sensing range. A distributed nonlinear control protocol is proposed to make a team of agents track the average of multiple time-varying reference signals with bounded derivatives. Furthermore, the initial interaction patterns can be preserved under the designed protocol and the average tracking can be achieved within fixed time, where the bound of settling time is independent of the initial conditions. Thus, the fixed convergence time can be flexibly adjusted. Finally, some numerical examples are provided to illustrate the performance and effectiveness of the theoretical results.