Distributed Control of A Class of Nonlinear Multi-Agent Systems with Switching Topologies

This paper presents a cyclic-small-gain approach to distributed control of nonlinear multi-agent systems with switching topologies for output agreement. Each agent is assumed to be in the strict output-feedback form. By introducing a new dynamic mechanism, a dynamic compensator, a local state-observer and a state transformation, the multi-agent system is transformed into a dynamic network having switching topology and consisting of input-to-output stable and unboundedness observable subsystems. The output agreement is verified to be realized by guaranteeing the stability of the dynamic network with the help of the cyclic-small-gain theorem.