Consensus of multi-agent systems with time-varying delay

This paper provides consensus analysis for networked continuous-time multi-agent systems via sampled control. The sampled control protocol is induced from a continuous-time consensus protocol by using periodic sampling technology and zero-order hold circuit. Meanwhile, time-varying delay that can be both smaller and larger than the sampling interval is taken into account. Based on graph theory and stability theory, a sufficient condition is proposed to guarantee the consensus achievement under the condition that communication channels suffer from time-varying delay. The main contribution of this paper is to provide a valid distributed consensus algorithm that explicitly describes which state information may be received in the concerning sampling interval. The results are illustrated by some simulations.