Teleoperation of multi-agent systems with nonuniform control input delays

Consensus and coordination of multiple teleoperated agents has been a control topic of growing interest over the last decade due, in part, to its many potential applications and related complex challenges. One of these challenges is to guarantee stability and motion coordination in the presence of inherent communication and input delays as well as system nonlinearities in the multi-agent system. Addressing this challenge herein, we report on a model reference robust control framework that guarantees stability, motion coordination, and formation control of N output strictly passive, nonlinear Lagrangian systems with arbitrarily large, nonuniform control input delays. The control framework is comprised of a reference model coupled to the nonlinear systems via the use of N modified scattering transformation blocks. It is shown that the overall control architecture is stable for any large constant delay, robust to system uncertainties, and that the control parameters are delay-independent. A numerical example with four nonlinear planar manipulators and another example with six ground vehicles are finally presented to illustrate the performance of the proposed controller.