Sampled-data leader-following rendezvous with input saturation

Abstract

This paper addresses practical issues in leader following rendezvous: sampled-data implementation with the consideration of input saturation. Due to the nonlinearity coming from these implementation constraints, the design of communication protocols becomes challenging even for a group of agents with simple linear-time-invariant dynamics such as an integrator. A nonlinear distributed controller is proposed to handle information lost between two sampling instants and input saturation. It is shown that under proper conditions on the sampling interval and the controller parameter, this new distributed controller can ensure the global rendezvous. Simulation results support the theoretic results.