A new consensus protocol for high order multi-agent systems

In this paper, the consensus problem of a class of high order multi-agent systems is studied. We supposed the multi-agent can only exchange information only accord to a directed communication graph. By using the relative state consensus algorithm, a sufficient condition is provided for consensus achievement. Then, a new consensus protocol which using a state observer is provided. The N observer and the N multi-agents can be viewed as 2N multi-agent components which will reach consensus asymptotically. This technique simplified consensus protocol design to some extent. We believe this technique can be extended to solve consensus problem exists in multi-agent systems with nonlinear dynamics over directed communication graph or even switching graph.