Formation control for second-order multi-agent systems with time-varying delays under directed topology

In this paper, we investigate a formation control problem for second-order multi-agent systems with directed graph interconnection topologies that contain time-varying coupling delays. By using a special multiple leaders’ framework, sufficient conditions are obtained for both time-invariant and time-varying formations as well as for time-varying formations for trajectory tracking, which guarantees the attainment of the formations is at exponentially converging speeds. Some numerical simulations are also conducted to validate the theoretical results.

► Formation control of multi-agent systems is an important coordinated control problem.
► This paper studied the formation control for second-order multi-agent systems.
► The time-varying coupling delays and directed topology are considered in this paper.
► Control strategies are proposed for formation problems in three different cases.
► The paper concludes by applying the theory to some simulated problems.