Adaptive Bipartite Time-Varying Output Formation Tracking of Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Systems

This letter investigates the bipartite time-varying output formation (BTVOF) tracking problem of heterogeneous discrete-time multi-agent systems (MASs). An adaptive distributed observer is constructed for each follower to estimate the state and system dynamics of the leader. Then, two distributed formation controllers with state feedback control and output feedback control are presented based on the proposed observer, respectively. Furthermore, based on Lyapunov stability theory, the sufficient solvability condition for achieving expected formation tracking is obtained. Finally, we perform a numerical simulation involving six quadrotors, and the effectiveness of the proposed BTVOF tracking protocol is verified by comparing the simulation results.