Bounded consensus tracking of single-integrator multi-agent systems with a bounded-acceleration reference state via sampled-data control

Motivated by the fact that the existing sampled-data consensus tracking protocols can only ensure that single-integrator multi-agent systems track a bounded-velocity reference state available to only a portion of agents in the continuous-time domain, this paper proposes an improved sampled-data consensus tracking protocol that can guarantee single-integrator multi-agent systems to track a bounded-acceleration reference state available to only a portion of agents in the continuous-time domain. The necessary and sufficient conditions on the allowable upper bounds of the constant feedback gain and the sampling period are derived. Comparison simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed protocol.