Fixed-Time Practical Consensus Tracking of Multi-Agent Systems With Communication Delay

This paper addresses the fixed-time consensus tracking problem for second-order multi-agent systems (MASs) subjected to communication delays under directed communication network. First, a predictive algorithm is designed to predict the neighbors' states at current time by using the delayed information. Next, based on the predicted neighbor's states, a fixed-time distributed observer is developed to estimate the leader's states. Finally, a predefined-time nonsingular terminal sliding mode control is proposed to stabilize the tracking error system and we can determine the controller gain as soon as the convergence time bound is prescribed. It is rigorously proved that the presented scheme achieves fixed-time consensus tracking of the studied MASs. This study contributes to providing a solution to fixed-time consensus tracking problem of second-order MASs subjected to communication delays under directed communication network, which is a challenging and important issue that has not been studied. The effectiveness of the presented strategy is validated through simulation results.