Passivity-based coordination of multi-agent systems: A backstepping approach

In this article we extend existing results for the passivity-based design of cooperative control laws to systems with arbitrary relative degree. To this end, we exploit the feedback equivalence of strict feedback systems to passive systems and design the controls based on an alternative backstepping procedure. This results in a virtual output, exchanged by the agents and synchronization of the group. Given a static strongly connected and balanced communication network we prove synchronization of the group with the proposed controller using the Krasovskii-LaSalle invariance principle. The effectiveness of our methodology is illustrated in numerical simulations, solving the rigid body attitude synchronization problem.