Leader-following Consensus for Second-order Nonlinear Multi-agent Systems Under Markovian Switching Topologies with Application to Ship Course-keeping

The leader-following consensus problem for a class of second-order nonlinear multi-agent systems under Markovian switching topologies is studied. First, a discontinuous distributed adaptive nonlinear control law using the relative state information between neighboring agents is designed for heterogeneous multi-agent systems, which achieves almost sure leader-following consensus for the closed-loop system. Then, a smooth distributed control law is designed for homogeneous multi-agent systems. Compared with previous results, the nonlinear functions are not required to satisfy the globally Lipschitz condition and the adaptive consensus protocol is in a distributed fashion, i.e., using only the relative information. A practical example of ship course control system and simulation are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the control scheme.