Distributed Event-triggered Consensus for Multi-agent Systems with Directed Topologies

Abstract: In this paper, we study consensus problem in multi-agent system with directed topology by event-triggered feedback control. That is, at each agent, the diffusion coupling feedbacks are based on the information from its latest observations to its in-neighbours. We derive distributed criteria to determine the next observation time of each agent that are triggered by its in-neighbours' information and its own states respectively. We prove that if the network topology is irreducible, then under the event-triggered coupling principles, the multi-agent system reach consensus. Then, we extend these results to the case of reducible topology with spanning tree. In addition, these results are also extended to the case of self-triggered control, in terms that the next triggering time of each agent is computed based on the current states, i.e., without observing the system's states continuously. The effectiveness of the theoretical results are illustrated by numerical examples.