Balanced containment control and cooperative timing of a multiagent system over random communication graphs

A multiagent system is considered, which is tasked with the objective of approaching a predetermined target from a desired region to minimize detection and then simultaneously converge at the target. The considered cooperative timing problem consists of 2 stages: navigation and simultaneous arrival. During the navigation stage, the agents are driven from a distant starting point toward the target while restricting their motion within a desired area. Only a few agents (ie, leaders) are equipped with the desired bearing information to the target, whereas the remaining agents (ie, followers) may only have local feedback with neighboring agents to coordinate their headings. No range information to the target and no absolute or other relative position information among agents are available. The arrival stage begins when agents enter a neighborhood of the target (ie, range information becomes available during the arrival stage), and agents coordinate their motion to perform simultaneous arrival. The agents could experience random loss of communication with immediate neighbors, which results in a stochastic communication network. On the basis of the random communication network, balanced containment control is developed, which almost surely restricts the motion of the group within a desired region while equally spacing the agents. An almost sure consensus algorithm is designed for agents to coordinate the simultaneous arrival time by achieving a consensus on informed agents during the arrival stage. Simulation results demonstrate the performance of the developed approach.