摘要：AbstractThis paper deals with the sampled-data leaderless consensus tracking problem of nonlinear time-delay multi-agent systems (MASs) over strongly directed networks. In particular, a new methodology for the design of sampled-data controllers achieving the leaderless consensus tracking of nonlinear MASs affected by state-delays is proposed. Firstly, the notion of steepest descent consensus feedback (SDCF), induced by a general class of Lyapunov-Krasovskii functionals, is introduced. Then, it is proved that there exists a suitably small maximum inter-sampling time such that the digital implementation of SDCFs (continuous or not) achieves the leaderless consensus tracking in a semi-global practical sense of the related sampled-data closed-loop MAS. The stabilization in the sample-and-hold sense theory is used as a tool for proving the results. The case of time-varying sampling intervals as well as the stability analysis of the inter-sampling system behaviour is included in the theory here developed. An example is studied in order to validate the results.
