Distributed State Estimation by a Network of Observers under Communication and Measurement Delays

In this paper we study the distributed state estimation of autonomous dynamic systems, under time-invariant communication and measurement delays. In the studied problem, we consider that the deployed network of observer agents cannot determine all the states of the observed plant from their own collected measurements. To reconstruct the correct state estimation, they must collaborate with neighboring agents to agree on the coordinated estimation data. Our current work considers the presence of time-invariant communication and measurement latency of the observer agents, and then following a low-gain approach we propose a framework for constructing distributed observers. Sufficient conditions for the stability of the corresponding observation error dynamics are derived, including an upper bound for the low-gain parameter of the observer equations. An illustrative example is also presented to verify the effectiveness of the theoretical derivations in the paper. Copyright (C) 2019. The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.