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We propose a new approach to discuss the consensus problem of multi-agent systems with time-varying delayed control inputs, switching topologies, and stochastic cyber-attacks under hybrid-triggered mechanism. A Bernoulli variable is used to describe the hybrid-triggered scheme, which is introduced to alleviate the burden of the network. The mathematical model of the closed-loop control system is established by taking the influences of time-varying delayed control inputs, switching topologies, and stochastic cyber-attacks into account under the hybrid-triggered scheme. A theorem as the main result is given to make the system consistent based on the theory of Lyapunov stability and linear matrix inequality. Markov jumps with uncertain rates of transitions are applied to describe the switch of topologies. Finally, a simulation example demonstrates the feasibility of the theory in this paper.
In the recent decade, multi-agent systems have been extensively studied due to the wide applications in many fields, for example, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) cooperative control,[1,2] formation control,[3–5] etc. The consensus problem is a critical issue in multi-agent systems, consistency means that some variables of all agents in a multi-agent system must converge to the same state in the end. There are plenty of results about the consistency of multi-agent systems. In Ref. [6], the concept of partial component consensus in multi-agent system was proposed firstly, and then the consensus problem of partial component in a leader–following multi-agent system with the directed topology was investigated. In Ref. [7], the consensus problem of fractional-order multi-agent systems by sampled-data control based on directed topology with order
Because the event-triggered mechanism can greatly reduce information transmission among agents and the time of agent controller adjustment, its application is more and more extensive. In Ref. [14], the leader–following consensus problem of discrete multi-agent systems with parameter uncertainties was solved based on the event-triggered control strategies. In Ref. [15], aiming at the consensus problem of leader–follower under fixed and switching communication topologies, a decentralized event-triggered controller was designed. The event-triggered scheme provides a useful method to improve the communication efficiency compared to the time-triggered scheme. Nevertheless, most of the event-triggered mechanisms mentioned above always come at the expense of system performance, and it should usually strike a balance between the amount of communication and system performance. In multi-agent systems, optimizing data transmission methods remains a challenge. In an actual control system, the utilization of the communication bandwidth is sometimes low, and information transmission can be less in a certain period of time. For this system, neither the event triggering scheme nor the time triggering scheme can guarantee the best system performance. How to fully cope with this situation is still a challenge, therefore, we propose a hybrid-triggered mechanism,[16] which includes time-triggered scheme and event-triggered scheme, the purpose is to shorten this gap. There are plenty of results about the hybrid-triggered scheme. For example, the issue of quantized state estimation for neural networks with cyber-attacks was addressed with the hybrid-triggered mechanism in Ref. [17]. In Ref. [18], the hybrid-triggered scheme was proposed to exclude the Zeno behavior. The issue of
In recent years, the rapid development of the network has made the connection between the control field and the network more tight. The introduction of the network has improved the efficiency in many aspects of the control system, for instance, the processing speed of the control system becomes faster. Nevertheless, it also brings huge challenges, e.g., packet loss, cyber-attacks, network induced delay, etc, among which the cyber-attack is the hottest issue. Therefore, the majority of scholars began to consider cyber-attacks from the perspective of control theory. In Ref. [20], the issue of decentralized event-triggered
Inspired by the above mentioned works, we concentrate on the design of a hybrid-triggered consensus controller with random network attacks, time-varying delayed control inputs, and uncertain switching topologies. The main contributions of this paper are as follows.
1) The multi-agent system can be described by a linear system, linearizable system, and time invariant system. And a hybrid-triggered scheme is introduced, which includes time-triggered scheme and event-triggered scheme to reduce the burden of network transmission. Switching between the two strategies follows a random Bernoulli distribution.
2) Cyber-attacks are taken into account, the probability of a random network attack occurring also obeys the Bernoulli distribution and the time-varying delay of each agent control input can be non-differentiable and non-uniform.
3) Topologies switching has an uncertain transition probability, which is used to describe network system communication failures or changes in neighbor relationships.
It should be noted that the topology states do not necessarily contain a spanning tree, and the topologies switching can be regarded as a continuous-time Markov chain with an uncertain transition probability. Therefore, the Markov jump linear system can be used to replace the original multi-agent system, and the analysis of the original system consistency is completed by analyzing the stability of the Markov jump linear system. To solve the problem of uncertain conversion rate, we are inspired by Refs. [23]–[26]. As far as we know, there is no research on hybrid-triggered consensus for multi-agent systems with time-varying delayed control inputs, uncertain switching topologies, and stochastic cyber-attacks.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In Section
In this article, the following symbols are used:
Graph theory is an important tool for studying multi-agent systems. Each agent can be represented as a node in graph theory. The information interaction among agents is represented as an edge in graph theory. A simple directed graph can be expressed as
Therefore, the Laplacian matrix
Consider a multi-agent system with m agents, each with the following dynamic mathematical model:
The consensus controller in this paper is proposed as follows:
According to Ref. [27], the continuous time Markov chain determines the dynamics of the parameter
The dynamic mathematical model (
The structure of the hybrid-triggered consensus for the multi-agent systems with time-varying delayed control inputs, uncertain switching topologies, and stochastic cyber-attacks is shown in Fig.
When the time-triggered mechanism is used in the hybrid-triggered mechanism, the sampled data will be transmitted as follows:[28]
According to Fig.
For the convenience of operation, according to Refs. [31] and [32], we can divide interval
The sampled signal in the event-triggered mechanism can be written as follows:
According to Ref. [32], in order to make full use of the limited network resources, the hybrid-triggered mechanism is introduced. The probability of switching between the time-triggered mechanism and the event-triggered mechanism is described by the random Bernoulli variable
Because of the introduction of networks in multi-agent systems, not only the delay caused by the network, but the stochastic cyber-attacks should be considered, in fact, the stochastic cyber-attacks are deception attacks, which will tamper with and destroy data from multi-agent systems in a network environment, which will result in each agent in the multi-agent system failing to receive correct and complete information, and degrade the performance and even cause system system crashes. In this paper, cyber-attacks are represented by a nonlinear function
Therefore, by substituting Eq. (
The closed-loop equation for the system can be obtained by substituting Eq. (
An assumption and some lemmas are introduced in the following.
According to Refs. [40] and [41], the method of tree-type transformation is used to translate the consensus problem into a stability problem. This is finished by introducing new variables that represent the disagreement of variables
We calculate the derivative of time of Eq. (
Therefore, the consistency of system (
Notice that for the convenience of derivation and calculation,
The following theorem gives the sufficient conditions that can guarantee the consistency of the multi-agent system with time-varying delayed control inputs, switching topologies, and stochastic cyber-attacks under the hybrid-triggered mechanism.
According to Eq. (
Combine Eq. (
For
Therefore, the following inequality can be obtained:
In order to guarantee
In this section, a numerical example is given to illustrate the feasibility of the algorithm designed in this paper. According to Refs. [44] and [45], the following system is considered:
Therefore, formulas (
So the Laplacians are
In order to match the
Notice that if there is no edge that points to vk in a topology, then its Laplacian
Set
We have the sampling period h=0.002 s, the initial state
Figure
Since the hybrid-triggered mechanism is introduced in this paper, therefore its usefulness should be demonstrated. Comparisons between different triggered mechanisms are displayed in Tables
According to Table
Through the above analysis, we can see that the hybrid-triggered scheme proposed in this paper can adaptively gather the massive data in the initial stage to promote the control system to reach stability. After the system reaches the steady state, the hybrid-triggered mechanism can effectively reduce the number of transmitted data and save lots of network resources.
The simulation example shows that the proposed algorithm in this paper can be applied to the consistency verification of general linear dynamic systems with time-delay. Moreover, it can be proved that even if there are no spanning trees in all three topologies, the system can still converge. Finally, the probability of switching between the three topologies is uncertain and the method in this paper can analyze the consistency of the system under uncertainty and estimation. Therefore, the method can more flexibly ensure system consistency . Based on the above analysis, it can be seen that the multi-agent system finally achieves asymptotic stability and consistency, i.e., the hybrid-triggered consensus controller designed for multi-agent systems with network attacks, time-varying delays control inputs, and uncertain switching topologies is effective.
In this paper, the consistency problem of multi-agent systems with time-varying delay control inputs, switching topologies, and stochastic cyber-attacks under a hybrid-triggered mechanism is investigated. First of all, the hybrid-triggered scheme is introduced to alleviate the network burden. In order to be closer to the actual situation, the time-varying delay, switching topologies, and cyber-attacks are also considered, where the cyber-attacks are described by a Bernoulli variable. Secondly, the consistency condition that can guarantees the system consensus in the mean-square sense is given by a theorem even if there is no spanning tree in the communication topologies, and the theorem is obtained by using the theory of Lyapunov stability and linear matrix inequality. Finally, a simulation example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method proposed in this paper.
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