Bipartite Tracking Formation Control of Nonlinear Multi-Agent Systems Using Adaptive Output-Feedback Protocols

This paper proposed distributed adaptive formation control for leader-follower bipartite time-varying formation (BTVF) of a nonlinear multi-agent system (MAS). The proposed nonlinear MAS satisfies the one-sided Lipschitz-type condition. In the topological graphs with directed spanning trees, the design of adaptive protocols does not depend on the known communication topology, which can avoid the use of global information. Given limited information, the proposed MAS can achieve desired formation tracking by utilizing an observer protocol and converting the bipartite formation control problem into a stability problem of system errors. The analysis results of the systematic errors by using Lyapunov candidate functions, indicate that the MAS can be globally stable with a certain convergence rate during operation. Finally, numerical simulations are presented to confirm the validity of the proposed approach.