Cooperative Adaptive Fuzzy Output Feedback Control for Synchronization of Nonlinear Multi‐Agent Systems in the Presence of Input Saturation

This paper considers the leader‐following synchronization problem of nonlinear multi‐agent systems with unmeasurable states in the presence of input saturation. Each follower is governed by a class of strict‐feedback systems with unknown nonlinearities and the information of the leader can be accessed by only a small fraction of followers. An auxiliary system is introduced and its states are used to design the cooperative controllers for counteracting the effect of input saturation. By using fuzzy logic systems to approximate the unknown nonlinearities, local adaptive fuzzy observers are designed to estimate the unmeasurable states. Dynamic surface control (DSC) is employed to design distributed adaptive fuzzy output feedback controllers. The developed controllers guarantee that the outputs of all followers synchronize to that of the leader under directed communication graphs. Based on Lyapunov stability theory, it is proved that all signals in the closed‐loop systems are semiglobally uniformly ultimately bounded (SGUUB), and the tracking error converges to a small neighborhood of the origin. An example is provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed control approach.