International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology (IJCTT) volume 9 number 1 Mar 2014

ISSN: 2231-2803 http://www.ijcttjournal.org Page26

Distributed Observer Design for Leader
following Control of Multi-Agent System with
Pinning Technique
Namrata v lade
#1
, Prajakta Borole
*2
#1
Lecturer,
*2
Assistant Professor
Department of Electronics.
Atharva college of Engineering,
Charkopnaka, malad marve road,
malad (west), Mumbai-4000 95.
Maharashtra,india.

Abstract--This paper is concerned with a leader
follower problem for a multi-agent system designed by
the pinning control technique without assuming that the
interaction graph is connected. Distributed observers
are designed for the second-order follower-agents,
under the common assumption that the velocity of the
active leader cannot be measured in real time. Some
dynamic neighbor-based rules and protocols, consisting
of distributed controllers and observers for the
autonomous agents, are developed to keep updating the
information of the leader. Also it is proved that each
agent can follow the active leader using common
Lyapunov function (CLF). Finally, a numerical example
is given for illustration

Index Terms- Leader-following, Multi-agent
networks, Pinning control technique, Active
leader, Distributed control, Distributed observer,
Common Lyapunov function
I. Introduction

THE consensus problem of multi-agent system has
attracted great attention in many fields, such as
biology, physics, robotics and control engineering.
As a type of collective behavior, the consensus of
multiple dynamic agents means that the states of all
the agents reach agreement on a common quantity by
implementing an appropriate consensus protocol A
multi-agent network provides an excellent model for
describing and analyzing complex interconnecting
behaviors [1][11] Distributed estimation via
observers design for multi-agent coordination is an
important topic in the study of multi-agent networks,
with wide applications especially in sensor networks
and robot networks, among many others. Yet, very
few theoretic results have been obtained to date on
distributed observers design and measurement-based
dynamic neighbor-based control design.
Nevertheless, one may find in the literature that Fax
and Murray [12] reported some results concerning
with distributed dynamic feedback of special multi-
agent networks, and Hong, Hu, and Gao [13]
proposed an algorithm for distributed estimation of
the active leaders un-measurable state variables, to
name just a couple Form. Also Yiguang Hong [24]
stated distributed observer design for second order
multi-agent system using CLF with switching
topology.
The motivation of this work is to expand the
conventional observers design to the distributed
observers design for a multi-agent system where an
active leader to be followed moves in an unknown
velocity. The continuous-time agent models
considered here are second-order, different from that
first order [13]. With this background, we consider a
consensus problem with an active leader with an
underlying dynamics. Here, some variables (that is,
the velocity and maybe the acceleration) of an active
leader cannot be measured, and each agent only gets
the measured information (that is, the position) of the
leader once there is a connection between them. In
this paper, we propose an observer by inserting an
integrator into the loop for each agent to estimate the
leaders velocity. To analyze the problem, a
Lyapunov-based approach is developed.
As it is practically impossible to control all agents in
a large-scale multi-agent system, the consensus
algorithm based on pinning control is proposed,
which means that we have to control only a small
fraction of agents. Literatures [15], [16] studied the
first-order consensus of multi-agent systems via
pinning control. Ren [17] considered the second-
order consensus of coupled double integrators with
partial access to a time-varying reference state. Since,
how to choose pinned nodes is one of the most
difficult problems in the pinning control of complex
International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology (IJCTT) volume 9 number 1 Mar 2014
ISSN: 2231-2803 http://www.ijcttjournal.org Page27

networks, Wang and Chen [18] pointed out that it is
better to specifically pin the most-highly connected
nodes for the undirected complex networks. Li et
al.[19] proved that there is no significant difference
between specific and random pinning schemes for
random networks. Yu et al.[23] state that the nodes
with low degree should be pinned first when they are
weakly coupled. Chen et al.[20] showed out that it is
possible to pin a strongly coupled complex network
by a single controller. Lu et al.[21] explore a method
to select pinned nodes by finding the strongly
connected components which have no edges with
heads in and tails out. Song et al. [22] revised
problem and provided solution that the node whose
out-degree is bigger than in-degree should be chosen
as a pinned candidate.
Inspired by the existing results, we study distributed
observer design problem for the leader-following
second-order multi-agent systems based on the
pinning control technique without assuming that the
interaction graph is connected with active leader.
That is to say, compared to the existing results, we
get consensus of second order system using
distributed observer under a weaker assumption.
Consequently, the main results of this paper have less
conservation and more practical applications.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. The
necessary notions and preliminary results are given in
Section II. Distributed observer design with the
pinning control technique for leader-following
second-order multi-agent systems are provided in
Section III. Some examples and simulation results are
given in Section IV to illustrate the effectiveness of
the obtained theoretical results. The conclusions and
the related topics are given in Section V.
II. Preliminaries
Throughout this paper, R
n
denotes the set of n
dimensional real column vectors .Let G={V,E,A} be
a weighted graph with the vertex set, V={v
1
,v
2
v
n
}
Where node :
i
, i I, represents the ith agent, and
the finite index set I ={ i
1
,i
2,,
i
n
} is the node indexes
of G ,E V x V is the set of edges, whose elements
denote the communication links between the agents.
A =[a
ij
] is the weighted adjacency matrix of the
weighted graph with nonnegative adjacency elements
a
ij
0. An edge in G is denoted by an unordered pair
(:
i
,:
j
).
The neighborhood set of the ith agent is denoted by
N
i
={:
J
V | (:
i ,
:
J
) E } .If there is an edge
between agent i and agent j , i.e.(:
i ,
:
j
) E then, a
ij
=
a
ij
>0 otherwise a
ij
= a
ij
=0 . An undirected network
G is connected, if there is a path between any two
distinct nodes :
i
and :
j
in G . For the leader-
following system, we consider another graph
associated with the system consisting of n agents
(which are called followers) and one leader denoted
by v
o
. Let vector B={b
1
,b
2
,.b
n
} with the adjacency
element b
i
>0 if agent is i a neighbor of the leader,
otherwise b
i
=0. The node v
0
is said to be globally
reachable in , if there is a path from every other
node to v
0
in . Let vector P={p
1
,p
2
,.,p
n
}, where
p
i
is the pinning control gain satisfying p
i
>0 if agent
i is pinned and p
i
=0 otherwise.
For simplicity, let vector
P
`
= P +B =(P
`
1
,P
`
2
,
,
P
`
n)
T

where P
`
= p
i
+b
i
,i = 1,2,,n. In practice the
relationships among neighboring agents may vary
over time, and their interconnection topology may
also be dynamically changing. Suppose that there is
an infinite sequence of bounded, non over lapping,
continuous time-intervals [t
j
,t
j+1
),j=0,1,...,say starting
at t
0
=0, over which o
N
:[0,)={1,2,...,N}is a
piecewise constant switching signal for each N,
defined at successive switching times. To avoid
infinite switching during a finite time interval,
assume that there is a constant with t
j+1
t
j
for
all j 0 .
III. Main Result
Assume that the leader is active, which means state
of the leader keep changing throughout entire
process. Dynamics of leader is as follows:
x
o =
:
o
x
o

R
n
:
o =
u
o
v
o

R
n

y = x
o
(1)
Where x
o
is the position, :
o
is the velocity, and y is
the only measurable variable. This work is to expand
the conventional observer design (where the input is
somehow known) to a neighbor-based observer
design. In some practical cases, the velocity :
o
is
hard to measure in real time, but the input u
o
(t) may
be regarded as some given policy known to all the
agents.
Dynamics of i followers are
x
i =
:
i +

i
1
x
i
R
n

:
i =
u
i +

i
2
:
i
R
n
,i =1,2,..,n. (2)
International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology (IJCTT) volume 9 number 1 Mar 2014
ISSN: 2231-2803 http://www.ijcttjournal.org Page28

Where
i
j
(t) (] =1,2 ) are disturbance and u
i
(i =
1,2,,n), is interaction inputs. We assume that
|
i
j
| o for all i , j =1,2,.,n.
Since all followers cannot evaluate the velocity of
leader in real time, they have to estimate it all
through process. Here :
i
is estimate of :
o
by
follower agent. To track active leader following
neighbor-based rule with pinning technique is
proposed:
u
i
= u
o
q[:
i
:
i
] w [ o
ij ]Ni
(t)
(x
i
-x
j
)
+ P

i ]Ni(t)
(x
i
-x
o
) ] (3)
And distributed observer
:
i

= u
o

w
q
[ o
ij ]Ni
(t)
(x
i
-x
j
) +
P
`
i ]N(t)
(x
i
-x
o
) ] (4)
Where q ,w >0and the observer is of the first-
order. It is preferred to have a one-dimensional
reduced-order observer (4) instead of second-order
observers, regarding possible technical difficulty in
constructing a CLF for the higher-order system later
on. So the observer has the same dimension as the
agents in a single-integrator form, stated by Hong
al[13].Consensus proof of distributed observer is
proved by Yiguang Hong al[24].
Assumption1: Assume that under protocol (3) with
the feed-back gain satisfying P={p
1
,p
2
,,p
n
}
T
,I=1,2,n. where p
i
is the pinning control gain
satisfying p
i
> 0 if agent is pinned p
i
= 0 and
otherwise, the states of all agents can be directly or
indirectly affected by the state of the leader. For
simplicity consider system in a noise free
environment i.e.o =0.

The following lemma (Horn & Johnson, [13]) will be
useful later.
Lemma 1:
Consider a symmetric matrix
D =[
A E
E
T
C

Where A and C are square .Then D is positive
definite if and only if both A and C E
T
A
-1
E are
positive definite

Theorem 1:
Consider leader and follower in noise free
environment .In each time interval [t
j
,t
j+1
) if the
entire graph is connected, then there are constants w
and q such that controller (3) with observer (4)
together yields
lim
t
| x
i
(t)-x
o
(t) | =0 ,
lim
t
| v
i
(t)- v
o
(t) | =0 (5)
Namely, the agents can follow the leader (in the
sense of both position and velocity).
Proof:
Set =(x
1
..x
n
)
T
- x
o
z ,p =(:
1
..:
n
)
T
- v
o
z
and =(x
1
..x
n
)
T
- x
o
where
= (1 . t)
T
R
n
, then in case of o=0 , the closed
loop system (3) and (4) can be written as

= p

p = w (I

+p

) qp +

=
w
q

(w (I

+p

)

i.e. z =_
{
q

_ R
3n

or in compact form z =F

z.

F
=
_
0 I 0
wE

qI I

w
q
E

0 0
_

E

= I

+ P

(6)

Where the switching signal o
N
:[0,) ={1,2,...,N}
is a piecewise constant, vector P={p
1
,p
2
,,p
n
} ,
where p
i
is the pinning control gain satisfying p
i
>0
if agent is pinned and p
i
=0 otherwise.andI

is the
laplacian of n agents. In each time interval, L
K
and P
K

are time-invariant for some k .
We have lemma of Hong et al[13] E

=I

+p

is
positive definite since the switching graph remains
being connected. Moreover, once n is given,z

and z
,denoting the maximum and minimum positive Eigen
values of all the positive definite matrices H
K
, k ,
are fixed and depend directly on the given constants
o
ij
and p
i
, i=1,...,n; j=1,...,n. Select,
w =2/ z , q 4+ z

w (7)
Here, for system (6), a CLF is constructed as
V(z) =z
T
(t)Kz(t) , with
International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology (IJCTT) volume 9 number 1 Mar 2014
ISSN: 2231-2803 http://www.ijcttjournal.org Page29


K =

qI I
q
2
I
I I
1
2
I

q
2
I
1
2
I
q
2
I

(8)

This is positive definite due to (7)
Take an interval ( t
j
,t
j+1
) into consideration.
According to the assumed conditions, the graph
associated with H
K
for some fixed k is connected
and time-invariant.

The derivative of V(z) is given by
V

(z)|
(6)
=z
T
(F
I
k
K +K F
k
)z - z
T
C
k
z (9)
Where

Ck=_
2wE
k
- wH
k
wH
k

w
2q
H
k
I
wH
k

w
2q
H
k
2(q 1)I I
I I I
_

Set

Q
k
=[
2(q 1)I I
I I


-

[2-
1
q

2
4
wE
k
(2-
1
q
)
2
I
(2-
1
q
)
2
I
1
w
E
-1
k

2(q 1)I
[2-
1
q

2
4
wE
k

(4-
1
q
)
2
I

(4-
1
q
)
2
I I
1
w
E
-1
k

According to lemma 1 and by in (7) Q
k
is positive
definite matrix and same is true for C
k
. It follows
that there is a constant , independent of the
selection of the time intervals, such that
V (z(t)) V (z(t))e
-2(t-ti)
, t (t
j
,t
j+1
).
Consequently,
V (z(t)) V (z(0))e
-2(t)
, t
0
=0 (10)
Which implies (5).

Remark 1: This paper adopts the pinning control
technique to study the distributed observer design for
the leader-following second-order multi-agent
systems. Then the key issues for the pinning control
technique are what kind of agents and how many
agents should be pinned to achieve a leader-following
second order finite time consensus. From Assumption
1, one can obtain the following conclusions: (i) The
isolated agents must be pinned because their states
cannot be influenced by any other agent; (ii) The
agents with small degree should be considered to be
pinned in priority, because these agents receive very
little information from the other agents. (iii) With the
pinning controlled gains, the states of all the agents
can be directly or indirectly affected by the states of
the leader.
Remark 2: Compared to the existing results, different
from [24], we study the distributed observer design
for the leader-following second-order multi-agent
systems by the pinning control technique without
assuming that the interaction graph is connected or
the leader is globally reachable.

IV. Examples and Simulation

In this section, some numerical simulations are
presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the
obtained theoretical results.

Example 1: Consider the leader-following multi-
agent system with four followers (denoted by v
i
,
i=1,2,3,4 ), and one leader (denoted by v
0
), Under the
following unconnected graph
s
,s=1,2 .

The initial states of the followers are
x (0)=( x
1
(0), x
2
(0), x
3
(0), x
4
(0) )
T


=(-200,50,-50,150)
T

v(0)=( v
1
(0),v
2
(0), v
3
(0), v
4
(0) )
T


=(70 ,-100,60,90)
T



The initial states of the leader are x
0
=-150, v
0
(o) =
5, and v
0
(t) =v
0
(0) for all t 0.
Design the following distributed observer with
pinning technique protocol
u
i
=u
o
q[:
i
:
i
]
w [ o
ij
]Ni
(t)
(x
i
-x
j
) + P

i
]Ni(t)
(x
i
-x
o
) ]
Form fig 1.one can find that
B
1
=(1,0,0,0)
T
B
2
=(0,0,0,0)
T

Thus we can choose the pinning gain
P
S
=(p
1
,p
2
,p
3
,p
4
)
T

Since
P
1
=(0,0,1,0)
T

P
2
=(1,0,0,1)
T

For the graph
S
, s =(1,2) we have
P
`
=(P
`
1
,P
`
2
,P
`
3,
P
`
4
)
T

With P
`
= p
i
+b
i
, i=1,2,3,4 . s =(1,2).
International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology (IJCTT) volume 9 number 1 Mar 2014
ISSN: 2231-2803 http://www.ijcttjournal.org Page30

In all the simulations, the curves in green and black
denote the position and velocity states of the leader,
and those blue and red denote the position and
velocity states of the followers, respectively.


Fig 1: Graph 1 and 2.

Fig 2: Position tracking of followers for
1


Fig 3: Velocity tracking of followers for
2


The numerical results are obtained with q=200,w=35
, and u
o
=cos (t) . Fig.1 to 5 shows that the follower-
agents can track the leader in the noise-free case

Remark 3: one can find that despite of connectivity
problem we can use distributive observer for second
order system with pinning protocol efficiently to
track position and velocity of active leader. For
simplicity, here we take disturbance less system
i.e.=0 .


Fig 4: Position tracking of followers for
2


Fig 5: Velocity tracking of followers for
2



V. Conclusion

The distributed observer design problem of leader-
following second-order multi-agent systems with
pinning technique is studied in this paper. Based on
the graph theory, matrix theory and common
Lyapunov function, the distributed observer with
pinning control technique is designed without
assuming that the interaction graph is connected or
the leader is globally reachable. Moreover, some
examples and simulation results are given to illustrate
the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical results.
The finite-time consensus for observer, time-delay
and noise environment will be investigated in the
future.

International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology (IJCTT) volume 9 number 1 Mar 2014
ISSN: 2231-2803 http://www.ijcttjournal.org Page31

REFERENCES

[1] J . Delvenne, R. Carli, and S. Zampieri, Optimal strategies in
the average consensus problem,Syst. Control Lett., vol. 58, pp.
759765, 2009.
[2] Q. Hui and W. Haddad, Distributed nonlinear control
algorithms for network consensus,Automatica, vol. 44, pp. 2375
2381, 2008.
[3] M. Zhu and S. Martinez, Discrete-time dynamic average
consensus, Automatica, vol. 46, pp. 322329, 2010.
[4] W.Yu, G.Chen, W.Ren, J .Kurths, and W.Zheng,
Distributedhigher order consensus protocols in multi-agent
dynamical systems,IEEE Trans.CircuitsSyst.I, Reg.Papers, vol.
58, no. 8, pp. 19241932, 2011.
[5] Z. Guan, Z. Liu, G. Feng, and Y. W. Wang, Synchronization
of com-plex dynamical networks with time-varying delays via
impulsive distributed control,IEEE
Trans.CircuitsSyst.I,Reg.Papers, vol. 57, no. 8, pp. 21822195,
2010.
[6] A. Abdessameud and A. Tayebi, On consensus algorithms for
dou-bleintegrator dynamics without velocity measurements and
with input constraints,Syst. Control Lett., vol. 59, no. 12, pp.
812821, 2010.
[7] Z. Guan, Z. Liu, G. Feng, and M. J ian, Impulsive consensus
algorithms for the second-order multi-agent networks with
sampled infor-mation,Automatica, in press.
[8] R. Olfati-Saber and R. Murray, Consensus problems in
networks of agents with switching topology and time-delays,IEEE
Trans. Au-tomat. Contr., vol. 49, no. 9, pp. 15201533, 2004.
[9] W. Ren and R. Beard, Consensus seeking in multi-agent
systems under dynamically changing interaction topologies, IEEE
Trans. Automat. Contr., vol. 50, no. 5, pp. 655661, 2005.
[10] Y. Sun, L. Wang, and G. Xie, Average consensus in
networks of dynamic agents with switching topologies and
multiple time-varying de lays,Syst. Control Lett., vol. 57, pp.
175183, 2008.
[11] J . Lu, D. Ho, and J . Kurths, Consensus over directed static
networks with arbitrary finite communication delays,Phys.Rev.E,
vol. 80, p. 066121, 2009
[12] Fax, A., & Murray, R. M. (2004). Information flow and
cooperative control of vehicle formations.IEEE Transactions on
Automatic Control, 49(9),
14651476.11
[13] Hong, Y., Hu, J ., & Gao, L. (2006). Tracking control for
multi-agent consensus with an active leader and variable topology.
Automatica, 42(7), 11771182.
[14] Shi, H., Wang, L., & Chu, T. (2006). Virtual leader approach
to coordinated control of multiple mobile agents with asymmetric
interactions.Physica D, 213, 5165.
[15] F. Chen, Z. Chen, L. Xiang, Z. Liu, and Z. Yuan, Reaching a
consensus via pinning control,Automatica, vol. 45, pp. 1215
1220, 2009.
[16] X. Liu, T. Chen, and W. Lu, Consensus problemin directed
networks of multi-agents via nonlinear protocols,Phys. Lett. A,
vol. 373, pp. 31223127, 2009.
[17] W. Ren, On consensus algorithms for double-integrator
dynamics, IEEE Trans. Automat. Contr., vol. 53, no. 6, pp. 1503
1509, 2008.
[18] X. Wang and G. Chen, Pinning control of scale-free
dynamical net-works,Physica A, vol. 310, pp. 521531, 2002.
[19] X. Li, X. Wang, and G. Chen, Pinning a complex dynamical
network to its equilibrium,IEEE Trans.CircuitsSyst.I, Reg.Papers,
vol. 51, no. 10, pp. 20742087, 2004.
[20] T. Chen, X. Liu, and W. Lu, Pinning complex networks by a
single controller,IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. I, Reg. Papers, vol.
54, no. 6, pp. 13171326, 2007.
[21] W. Lu, X. Li, and Z. Rong, Global stabilization of complex
networks with diagraph topologies via a local pinning
algorithm,Automatica, vol. 46, pp. 116121, 2010.
[22] Q. Song and J . Cao, On pinning synchronization of directed
and undirected complex dynamical networks, IEEE Trans.
Circuits Syst. I, Reg. Papers, vol. 57, no. 3, pp. 672680, 2010.
[23] W. Yu, G. Chen, and J . L, On pinning synchronization of
complex dynamical networks,Automatica, vol. 45, pp. 429435,
2009.
[24] Yiguang Honga,a, Guanrong Chen b, Linda Bushnell c
Distributed observers design for leader-following control of
multi-agent networks Automatica 44 (2008) 846850