Event-triggered consensus control of multi-agent systems with time delays
SU Xiaoming
LIU Kewei
A Diya
Abstract：[Objective]This paper addresses the consensus control problem of linear multi-agent systems with communication delays under an event-triggered mechanism to reduce communication frequency while ensuring system stability.Traditional consensus control schemes mostly rely on periodic information updates where frequent communication not only consumes resources but may also cause system instability.To address this issue,a distributed control method that integrated pinning control strategy with an integral-type event-triggered mechanism was proposed for multi-agent systems with communication delays,enabling consistent driving of agent states.[Methods]First,a virtual leader was introduced to transform the consensus problem into an asymptotic stabilization problem of the corresponding error system.Then,a feedback controller incorporating local agent states,neighboring information,and leader-guidance terms was designed.Combined with an integral triggering function,a triggering schedule was constructed to reduce communication updates.Subsequently,based on the constructed error-system model,a Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional was developed that accounted for the current state,communication-delay terms,double-integral terms,triggering-error terms,and delayed-derivative terms.Sufficient conditions were obtained to guarantee the global asymptotic stability of the closed-loop error system.On the basis of stability,the potential Zeno behavior induced by the event-triggered mechanism was further analyzed.By introducing an upper bound on the growth of the error energy and a dynamic constraint on the integral triggering function,a positive lower bound on the inter-event intervals was derived,and a set of sufficient conditions to exclude Zeno behavior were provided.[Results]Simulation results demonstrate that,even in the presence of communication delays,the proposed integral event-triggered mechanism achieves consensus while significantly reducing triggering frequency and control energy consumption achieving the lowest overall energy consumption.Moreover,the convergence curves become smoother and avoid excessive triggering caused by high-frequency small disturbances,demonstrating improved convergence stability and energy efficiency.[Conclusions]Compared with traditional and dynamic event-triggered schemes,the proposed control strategy achieves better overall performance in communication and energy utilization while guaranteeing consensus,demonstrating higher practical value for resource-constrained multi-agent systems.This study provides new theoretical support and a methodological framework for the distributed control of delayed multi-agent systems.
Keywords：multi-agent systemevent-triggered controlpinning controlLyapunov-Krasovskii functionallinear matrix inequalitycommunication delayfixed topologyconsensus control
Publication Date：2026-01-25
Online Publishing Date：2026-03-17(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：9( 54-62 )