Distributed output tracking of nonlinear multi-agent systems by linear sampled-data control.

This paper investigates the distributed output tracking problem via linear sampled-data control for a class of uncertain nonlinear multi-agent systems. Specifically, for the case where the graph topology is directed and the leader is the neighbor of only a small portion of followers, by combining the backstepping method with sampled-data method, a series of linear sampled-data controllers are obtained. Stability analysis is performed by using calculus, comparison principle and so on. The main results of this paper are concluded that all the states of the closed-loop system are globally bounded and the output tracking errors can be tuned arbitrarily small. Finally, a numerical example is given to verify the validity of the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]