Prescribed-time leader-following scaled consensus for nonlinear multiagent systems

In this paper, the leader-following (L-F) scaled consensus (SC) for first-order multiagent systems (MASs) is considered within a prescribed time (PT). First, a distributed control protocol is proposed by incorporating a time-varying gain function and scaled factors. This protocol is designed to drive the states of the leader and followers to a predefined scaled relationship within the PT. It is worth noting that, by appropriately selecting the scaled factor, the protocol can also achieve complete consensus, bipartite consensus, or cluster consensus among the agents. To further enhance the control performance and reduce communication frequency, an improved control protocol is proposed by incorporating an event-triggered mechanism in which the event-triggering function is constructed using time-varying variables. Moreover, based on the PT stability theory, sufficient conditions are derived to ensure that SC is achieved within the PT. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed control protocol is verified through two numerical simulation examples.