External consensus of networked multi-agent systems with nonlinear dynamics and random network delay

In this paper, the external consensus problem of networked multi-agent systems with fixed undirected topology, random network delay and nonlinear dynamics is considered. The unknown nonlinear dynamics existing in the systems can be described as RBF-ARX model. Besides, the random network delay can be compensated by introducing the prediction strategy. The RBF-ARX model is used as prediction model to design the output predictor, which is to generate the prediction sequence of control input and agent's output. Then, the designed selector chooses the proper value from the available sequences corresponding to the value of the network delay. Based on the mentioned above, a distributed external consensus control algorithm is proposed to make the considered systems with external reference input achieve consensus. Finally, an example is given to illustrate the validity of the proposed algorithm.