Aperiodic Intermittent Dynamic Event‐Triggered Leader‐Following Consensus of Nonlinear MASs Under Semi‐Markov Switching Topologies

ABSTRACT This article investigates the mean‐squared leader‐following consensus problem of nonlinear multi‐agent systems under semi‐Markov switching topologies. By integrating the merits of three advanced control approaches, a novel aperiodic intermittent dynamic event‐triggered mechanism is developed to further save network resources. Moreover, the developed mechanism is only executed during the working interval of each intermittent period, and the communication instants are determined by a predefined discrete triggering condition, while the internal dynamic variable can be adjusted adaptively with random sampling signals. By fully taking the information of semi‐Markov switching parameters, virtual delay, and internal dynamic variables into account, a general Lyapunov functional is constructed to depict the dynamical evaluation of systems. Then, two less‐conservative consensus criteria are derived by virtue of the developed control mechanism, the general Lyapunov functional, and other analysis methods. In the end, two numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in reducing the waste of network resources.