2.6 5.

Article

Consensus of Fixed and Adaptive

Coupled Multi-Agent Systems with
Communication Delays

Zicheng Qiu, Sheng Tian, Baoping Zhou, Qi Han, Yuan Tian, Tengfei Weng and Turghunjan Mamut

Special Issue
Advanced Mechatronic Technologies in Industry 4.0 Era: Intelligent Systems, Advanced Control and
Automation
Edited by
Prof. Dr. Iliana Marinova and Prof. Dr. Valentin Mateev

https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12061279
 electronics
Article
Consensus of Fixed and Adaptive Coupled Multi-Agent
Systems with Communication Delays
Zicheng Qiu 1 , Sheng Tian 1, * , Baoping Zhou 2, *, Qi Han 1 , Yuan Tian 1 , Tengfei Weng 3
and Turghunjan Mamut 2

1 College of Intelligent Technology and Engineering, Chongqing University of Science and Technology,
Chongqing 401331, China
2 College of Information Engineering, Tarim University, Alar City 843300, China
3 College of Electrical Engineering, Chongqing University of Science and Technology,
Chongqing 401331, China
* Correspondence: [email protected] (S.T.); [email protected] (B.Z.)

Abstract: This paper aims to solve the consensus problem of three different types of multi-agent
systems under fixed communication delay. For these three different types of multi-agent systems,
three new control protocols are constructed to solve the consensus issue of multi-agent systems with
coupling weights, which is rarely considered in other related articles. For fixed coupled multi-agent
systems, a new control strategy is designed by Lyapunov theory, matrix theory, and the inequality
method to ensure the consensus of multi-agent systems. An adaptive coupling weight updating
scheme is proposed for adaptive coupling multi-agent systems to achieve the consensus state of
the multi-agent systems. Finally, experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed three
different algorithms.

Keywords: fixed coupled multi-agent systems; communication delay; adaptive coupled multi-agent
systems; consensus problem

Citation: Qiu, Z.; Tian, S.; Zhou, B.;

1. Introduction
Han, Q.; Tian, Y.; Weng, T.; Mamut, T.
Consensus of Fixed and Adaptive Now, more and more coordination control methods have been applied to smart grid
Coupled Multi-Agent Systems with power allocation [1], tracking control [2], Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) formation
Communication Delays. Electronics control [3], and others. The design of a cooperative control protocol determines whether
2023, 12, 1279. https://doi.org/ the whole system can reach consensus in multi-agent systems. Through the transmission of
10.3390/electronics12061279 information between two adjacent agents, a control protocol is designed to make the state
values of all agents reach a state [4]. For achieving the consensus of multi-agent systems,
Academic Editors: Iliana Marinova
and Valentin Mateev
the design of a control protocol has attracted much consideration.
It is worth noting that for the control strategy of multi-agent systems, there are cur-
Received: 25 November 2022 rently two main popular control models: the leader–follower model and the leaderless
Revised: 28 January 2023 model. Under the action of the cooperative control protocol, all the state values of the
Accepted: 31 January 2023 follower agents can reach the same state value as the followers [5–7]. In [5], Sader et al.
Published: 7 March 2023
studied the problem that leader–follower multi-agent systems exit fuzzy fault-tolerant
tracking consensus. Zhang et al. [6] investigated the linear leader–follower multiagent
systems problem with nonzero leader input. In [7], Tian et al. researched the leader–
Copyright: © 2023 by the authors.
following multi-agent systems fixed-time problem of high-order with external disturbances.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. In addition, leaderless multi-agent models have been extensively studied [8–10]. In the
This article is an open access article leaderless system model, the information between agents does not need to be exchanged
distributed under the terms and with the leader, only agents exchange information with neighboring agents. In [8], Tian
conditions of the Creative Commons et al. proposed the consensus problem of second-order leaderless multi-agent systems
Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// with parametric uncertainties. Rezaee and Abdollahi [9] investigated the problem of strict-
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ feedback nonlinear leaderless multi-agent systems with control directions. Other than
4.0/). that, Difilippo et al. [10] studied the problem of a leaderless agents system by forming

Electronics 2023, 12, 1279. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12061279 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/electronics

Electronics 2023, 12, 1279 2 of 15

a uniformly spaced string. The above-mentioned leader–follower model and leaderless

model give us a lot of inspiration for our work in this paper.
It is worth noting that the system often has time delays in the practical application
process [11–13]. In recent years, more and more scholars have started to extensively study
the lag synchronization problem of the multi-agent system [14–18]. Ref. [14] mainly studied
the generalized delay synchronization problem of weighted complex networks of time
delays. The authors designed an appropriate controller to achieve synchronization in the
time delay state by using the Lyapunov function and inequality techniques. Unlike [14],
Xie et al. [15] set an observer to detect the state between the agent and its neighbors without
considering the factor of network weight where a control strategy was designed for a
multi-agent system. For the system in the nonlinear state, the predictor was designed in the
literature [16] to suppress the disturbance factors and achieve a consensus effect. To reduce
the influence of input delay in a multi-agent system, the consensus issue was transformed
into a robust H∞ consensus control issue by designing the control output in [17]. In [18],
a method based on frequency domain analysis was proposed to carry out the consensus
control of a multi-agent system with coupling weight.
However, in the multi-agent system, if the communication between agents is delayed
or interrupted, the consensus of the multi-agent system will be reduced or destroyed [19–22].
In [19], the double-tree-from transformations method was introduced to solve the commu-
nication delay problem between agents. Different from [19], Ref. [20] divided a group into
many clusters and then conducted modeling processing on aperiodic sampling and com-
munication delay, obtaining the necessary conditions for forming clusters through detailed
theoretical analysis. For the consensus issue of a fixed multi-agent system, the solution
proposed in [21] was to establish a model with linear parameters, where a kind of directed
fixed adaptive consensus algorithm was proposed for satisfying the equilibrium condition.
Lu [23] proposed a new distributed primal-dual algorithm for a continuous-time multi-
agent system under a time-varying graph to address the problem of distributed resource
allocation. In paper [24], the problem of a nonlinear multiagent system under time-varying
delay is taken into account. They have given a good solution strategy for dealing with
communication delays in multi-agent systems. Motivated by the above research results,
this paper mainly studies the adaptive and fixed coupling consensus of multi-agent systems
with communication delays.
Inspired by the discussions above, this paper on the consensus problem of three
different types of multi-agent control under communication delay. We design three different
control protocols to achieve the consensus of multi-agent systems. The main innovation
points are listed as follows:
(1) Different from the paper [14], this paper studies the consensus problem of fixed
and adaptive coupled multi-agent systems with communication delays, and our research is
more general.
(2) Three new control protocols are designed for three different types of multi-agent
systems. For adaptive coupling multi-agent systems, an adaptive coupling weight updating
scheme is proposed to ensure consensus for two cases in an adaptive coupling situation.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Some notations are given in Section 2.
Section 3 studies consensus control of fixed and adaptive coupling multi-agent systems
with communication delays. In Section 4, several simulations are presented to verify the
correctness of the theoretical results. Finally, the conclusion is written in Section 5.

2. Problem Formulation
Notations
The n-dimensional Euclidean space is Rn . The notation Rn×n denotes the set of n × n
matrix spaces. The notation IN denotes an identity matrix with appropriate dimensions.
The Euclidean norm is || · ||. The Kronecker product is ⊗. The notation W T is the transpose
of a matrix W. The notation λ1 (.) represents the maximum eigenvalues of corresponding
Electronics 2023, 12, 1279 3 of 15

matrix. The notation λ2 (.) represents the minimum eigenvalues of corresponding matrix.
The notation Ni is a neighbor of the ith node.
In this part, we design three different control strategies for three different types of
multi-agent systems, and prove the stability bywith the Lyapunov function.
Case 1: The consensus of fixed coupling leaderless multi-agent systems with commu-
nication delays. Consider a fixed coupling multi-agent system with N agents, where the
dynamic of the ith agent is described by

N
ẋi (t) = Axi (t) + c ∑ Gij Γx j (t) + ui , (1)
j =1

where i = 1, 2, · · · , N, xi ∈ Rn is the state vector of node i, ui ∈ Rn represents the control

input vector of node i, A ∈ Rn×n is a constant matrix, c > 0 represents the coupling
strength, Γ ∈ Rn×n denotes the inner coupling matrix. Gij ∈ R N × N stands for the outer
coupling weight, where satisfies Gij = Gji > 0 if there is a connection between node i and
N
node j and Gij = Gji = 0 otherwise, and Gii = − ∑ Gij . Assume that the network of
j=1,j6=i
system (1) is connected in this paper.

Remark 1. Compared with [20], there are internal and external coupling in multi-agent systems
in this paper. Such systems are more applicable in reality.

Definition 1. The multi-agent system (1) can reach an average consensus if the following condition
is satisfied.
1 N
N i∑
lim k xi (t) − x̄ (t)k=0, x̄ (t) = x i ( t ). (2)
t→+∞
=1

For multi-agent systems (1), the control protocol is designed as

" #
N 
ui (t) = k ∑ x j t − γ ji − x̄ t − γ ji − ( xi (t) − x̄ (t)) − ( xi (t) − x̄ (t)) ,




(3)
j =1

where k > 0 denotes control gain and γ ji > 0 denotes communication delay of agent j to
agent i. In this paper, the communication delay is a fixed delay, which means that it does
not change with time. Define error σi (t) = xi (t) − x̄ (t) . Then

σ̇i (t) = ẋi (t) − x̄˙ (t)

N
= Axi (t) + c ∑ Gij Γx j (t) + ui (t)
j =1
!
N N (4)
1
−
N ∑ Axi (t) + c ∑ Gij Γx j (t) + ui (t)
i =1 j =1
N N
1
= Aσi (t) + c ∑ Gij Γe j (t) + ui (t) − ∑ u i ( t ).
j =1
N i =1

Case 2: A fixed coupling leader–following multi-agent system with N agents, where

the dynamic of ith agent is described by

 ẋ (t) = Ax (t) + c N G Γx (t) + u , i = 1, 2, · · · , N − 1

i i ∑ ij j i
j =1 (5)
 ẋ (t) = Ax (t),

0 0
Electronics 2023, 12, 1279 4 of 15

where xi ∈ Rn denotes the state of following agents and x0 ∈ Rn denotes the state of leader
agent. The notations Gij and Γ are defined in (1).

Definition 2. The multi-agent system (5) can reach leader–following consensus if following condi-
tion satisfies.
lim k xi (t) − x0 (t)k = 0. (6)
t→+∞

For multi-agent systems (5), the control protocol is designed as

" #
N 
ui (t) = k ∑ x j t − γ ji − x0 t − γ ji − ( xi (t) − x0 (t)) − ( xi (t) − x0 (t)) ,




(7)
j =1

where k > 0 denotes control gain and γ ji > 0 denotes communication delay. Define error
σi (t) = xi (t) − x0 (t) , then

σ̇i (t) = ẋi (t) − ẋ0 (t)

N (8)
= Aσi (t) + c ∑ Gij Γσj (t) + ui (t).
j =1

Case 3: Consider an adaptive coupling leaderless multi-agent system with N agents,

where the dynamic of ith agent is described by

N
ẋi (t) = Axi (t) + c ∑ Gij (t)Γx j (t) + ui , (9)
j =1

where i = 1, 2, · · · , N, xi ∈ Rn is the state of agent, Gij (t) is time-varying matrix, where

satisfies Gij (t) = Gji (t) > 0( j 6= i ). If there is connection between agent i and agent j and
N
Gij (t) = 0. Furthermore, Gii (t) = − ∑ Gij (t) when i = j. A ∈ Rn×n is a constant matrix.
j=1,j6=i
c > 0 is a coupling strength. Γ ∈ R × N is a
N inner coupling matrix. ui ∈ Rn represents the
control input vector of node i. For system (9), the following controller is designed

ui (t) = ∑ k x j t − γ ji − x̄ t − γ ji − ( xi (t) − x̄ (t)) ,

(10)
j∈Ni

where k > 0 and γ ji > 0 is communication delay of agent j to agent i. Let error
σi (t) = xi (t) − x̄ (t), then

σ̇i (t) = ẋi (t) − x̄˙ (t)

N N (11)
1
= Aσi (t) + c ∑ Gij (t)Γσj (t) + ui (t) − ∑ u i ( t ).
j =1
N i =1

The adaptive strategy for updating the coupling weight Gij (t) is designed as follows:

T

 aij σi (t) − σj (t) Γ σi (t) − σj (t) , i f (i, j) ∈ ε


Ġij (t) = − ∑ Ġij (t), i f i = j (12)

 j 6 =i
0, otherwise,


where aij = a ji > 0 and ε denote the set of edges in a multi-agent system (9).
Electronics 2023, 12, 1279 5 of 15

3. Main Results
In this section, the sufficient conditions of consensus of fixed and adaptive coupled
multi-agent systems with communication delays will be provided. We give the specifically
designed three new control protocols and the matrix inequality conditions.

Theorem 1. The fixed coupling multi-agent systems (1) achieve average consensus under protocol
(3) if there exists matrix P such that
 
IN ⊗ PA + A T P + cG ⊗ ( PΓ + ΓP) − 2kIN ⊗ P ≤ 0. (13)

Proof. Select the Lyapunov functional as follows:

N N Z t
V1 (σ(t)) = ∑ σi T (t) Pσi (t) + k ∑ ∑ t−γ ji
σj T (γ) Pσj (γ)dγ. (14)
i =1 i =1 j∈Ni

The derivation of time on both sides of Equation (14) can be obtained

N N h
i
V̇1 (σ (t)) = 2 ∑ σi T (t) Pσ̇i (t) + k ∑ ∑ σj T (t) Pσj (t) − σj T t − γ ji Pσj t − γ ji .


(15)
i =1 i =1 j∈Ni

Combined with Equation (4), we obtain

N N h
i
V̇1 (σ(t)) = 2 ∑ σi T (t) Pσ̇i (t) + k ∑ ∑ σj T (t) Pσj (t) − σj T t − γ ji Pσj t − γ ji


i =1 i =1 j∈Ni
"
N N
= 2 ∑ σi T (t) PAσi (t) + ∑ cGij Γσj (t)
i =1 j =1
# (16)
∑



−kσj (t) + k σj t − γ ji − σi (t)
j∈Ni
N 

+k∑ ∑ σj T (t) Pσj (t) − σj T t − γ ji Pσj t − γ ji .


i =1 j∈Ni

Since the system (1) is undirected, Equation (16) can be rewritten as

N   N N
V̇1 (σ(t)) = ∑ σi T (t) PA + A T P σi (t) + 2 ∑ ∑ cGij σi T (t) PΓσj (t)
i =1 i =1 j =1
N 

+k∑ ∑ σj T (t) Pσj (t) − σj T t − γ ji Pσj t − γ ji


i =1 j∈Ni
N N
(17)
−k∑ ∑ σj T t − γ ji Pσj t − γ ji − 2k ∑ σi T (t) Pσi (t)



i =1 j∈Ni i =1
N N
+ 2k ∑ ∑ σi T (t) Pσj t − γ ji − k ∑ ∑ σi T (t) Pσi (t)


i =1 j∈Ni i =1 j∈Ni
h  
 i 
= σ T cG ⊗ PΓ + ΓP T + IN ⊗ PA + A T P − 2kIN ⊗ P σ(t) − kW1 (t),

N

T
. Since IN ⊗ PA + A T P




where W1 (t) = ∑ ∑ σi (t) − σj t − γ ji P σi (t) − σj t − γ ji
i =1 j∈Ni
+cG ⊗ ( PΓ + ΓP) − 2kIN ⊗ P ≤ 0, V̇1 (e(t)) < 0. According to Definition 1, the systems (1)
can achieve average consensus.
Electronics 2023, 12, 1279 6 of 15

Theorem 2. The fixed coupling multi-agent systems (6) achieve leader–following consensus under
protocol (7) if the following condition is satisfied
 
IN ⊗ A + A T + 2cG ⊗ Γ − 2kIN ⊗ In ≤ 0. (18)

Proof. The Lyapunov functional is selected

N N Z t
V2 (σ(t)) = ∑ σi T (t)σi (t) + k ∑ ∑ t−γ ji
σj T (γ)σj (γ)dγ. (19)
i =1 i =1 j∈Ni

The derivation of time on both sides of Equation (19) can be obtained

N N h
i
V̇2 (σ (t)) = 2 ∑ σi T (t)σ̇i (t) + k ∑ ∑ σj T (t)σj (t) − σj T t − γ ji σj t − γ ji .


(20)
i =1 i =1 j∈Ni

Combine with Equation (8), obtaining

N N h
i
V̇2 (σ(t)) = 2 ∑ σi T (t)σ̇i (t) + k ∑ ∑ σj T (t)σj (t) − σj T t − γ ji σj t − γ ji


i =1 i =1 j∈Ni
"
N N
= 2 ∑ σi T (t) Aσi (t) + ∑ cGij Γσj (t)
i =1 j =1
#
∑



−kσj (t) + k σj t − γ ji − σi (t)
j∈Ni


∑ σj T (t)σj (t) − σj T t − γ ji σj t − γ ji


+
j∈Ni (21)
N   N N
= ∑ σi T (t) A + A T σi (t) + 2 ∑ ∑ cGij σi T (t)Γσj (t)
i =1 i =1 j =1
N N
−k∑ ∑ σj T t − γ ji σj t − γ ji − 2k ∑ σi T (t)σi (t)



i =1 j∈Ni i =1
N N
+ 2k ∑ ∑ σi T (t)σj t − γ ji − k ∑ ∑ σi T (t)σi (t)


i =1 j∈Ni i =1 j∈Ni
h   i
T T
=σ 2cG ⊗ Γ + IN ⊗ A + A − 2kIN ⊗ In σ(t) − kW2 (t),

N

T


where W2 (t) = ∑ ∑ σi (t) − σj t − γ ji σi (t) − σj t − γ ji .
i =1 j∈Ni
Since IN ⊗ A + A T + 2cG ⊗ Γ − 2kIN ⊗ In ≤ 0, V̇2 (σ (t))< 0. According to Definition 2,

the systems (6) can achieve leader–following consensus.

Theorem 3. The multi-agent system (9) realizes average consensus under controller (10) and the
adaptive strategy (12).

Proof. The Lyapunov functional is chosen as follows

N N c Gij (t) − αij N Z t
T
V3 (σ(t)) = ∑ σi (t)σi (t) + ∑ ∑ +k∑ ∑ σj T (s)σj (s)ds, (22)
i =1 i =1 j∈Ni
2aij i =1 j∈N t − γ ji i

where αij = α ji > 0(i 6= j) and αij = 0 if and only if Gij (t) = 0. The derivation of time on
both sides of Equation (22) can be obtained
Electronics 2023, 12, 1279 7 of 15

N   N N
V̇3 (σ (t)) = ∑ σ T i (t) A + A T σi (t) + 2 ∑ ∑ cGij (t)σT i (t)Γσj (t)
i =1 i =1 j =1
N
+ 2 ∑ σi T (t) ∑



k σj t − γ ji − σi (t)
i =1 j∈Ni
(23)
N 

T T
+k∑ ∑


k σj (t)σj (t) − σj t − γ ji σj t − γ ji
i =1 j∈Ni
N
T
+∑ ∑




c Gij (t) − αij σi (t) − σj (t) Γ σi (t) − σj (t) .
i =1 j∈Ni

Since
N
T
∑ ∑




c Gij (t) − αij σi (t) − σj (t) Γ σi (t) − σj (t) =
i =1 j∈Ni
(24)
N
T
−2c ∑ ∑


Gij (t) − αij σi (t)Γσj (t).
i =1 j∈Ni

Combining Equation (23) with Equation (24), one has

N N
V̇3 (σ (t)) = σ (t) T IN ⊗ A + A T σ(t) + ∑ ∑ 2cαij σi (t) T Γσj (t) − kW3 (t)


i =1 j =1 (25)
≤ σ(t) T IN ⊗ A + A T + 2cα ⊗ Γ σ(t) − kW3 (t),



N

T


where W3 (t) = ∑ ∑ σi (t) − σj t − γ ji σi (t) − σj t − γ ji , σ(t) =
i =1 j∈ Ni
T T
 
σ1 (t) T , σ2 (t) T , · · · , σN (t) ∈ R N × N . Since the network of system (9)


, α = αij N×N
is connected, Gij (t) ≤ 0. Obviously, there is a unitary matrix H such that H T αH = Ω =
diag(ω1 , ω2 , · · · , ω N ), where 0 = ω1 > ω2 ≥ ω3 ≥ · · · ≥ ω N . So from Equation (25) we
can obtain
h  i
V̇3 (σ(t)) ≤ σ(t) T IN ⊗ A + A T + 2cω2 Γ σ(t) − kW3 (t)
    (26)
≤ σ(t) T λ1 A T + A + 2cω2 λ2 (Γ) σ(t) − kW3 (t).

Let us pick a large enough number ω2

 
λ1 A T + A + 2cω2 λ2 (Γ) ≤ 0. (27)

From Equations (26) and (27), we have V̇3 (e(t)) < 0. So, the multi-agent system (9)
achieves average consensus under the adaptive strategy (12) and controller (10).

Remark 2. The communication delay is fixed in this paper. If the communication delay is time-
varying, it will affect the system to achieve consensus. Reference [25] pointed out that the com-
munication network between the control center and the actuator faces the challenge of random
communication delay, which will also affect the control of smart grids.

Remark 3. In real life, time delay often changes with time. This phenomenon of time-varying delay
is also a hot topic in current research. In the future research, the fixed delay term γ ji used in this
paper can be further modified as a time-varying term, but the influence of such time-varying terms
on system stability needs to be further considered.
Electronics 2023, 12, 1279 8 of 15

4. Numerical Simulations
In this section, a simulation experiment will be given to verify the effectiveness of the
algorithm proposed in this paper.

4.1. Example 1
Consider a multi-agent system, whose dynamic is described as follows

N
ẋi (t) = Axi (t) + 0.2 ∑ Gij Γx j (t) + ui , (28)
j =1

 
−0.05 0 0.03 0.02 0
 
0 0.3 −0.3 0 −0.06 0.03 0 0.03
 
 
 
where A = 
 −0.3 0 1 , Γ = I3 , G = 

 0.03 0.03 −0.06 0 0  . Under

0.3 −1 0 0.02 0 0 −0.02 0
 
 
0 0.03 0 0 −0.03
control protocol (3), we choose k = 0.5, P = diag(1.5, 1, 1), γ ji = 0.1. The conditions given
above can satisfy Theorem 1. The states trajectories of five agents and input signal under
protocol (3) are drawn in Figures 1 and 2. Figure 3 depicts that variation of error. Obviously,
the average consensus is achieved.

Figure 1. The states trajectories of five agents.

Electronics 2023, 12, 1279 9 of 15

Figure 2. The input signal trajectories under protocol (3).

Figure 3. The error trajectories.

Electronics 2023, 12, 1279 10 of 15

4.2. Example 2
A leader–following multi-agent system is considered. In Equation (5), choose A =
−0.05
 
0 0.03 0.02 0
0.5 −0.5 −0.05 0.03
 
0 
 0 0 0.02  
 −0.5 0 −1  , c = 0.5, Γ = I3 , G =  0.03
 0.03 −0.06 0 0 .

0.5 1 0  0.02 0 0 −0.02 0 
0 0.02 0 0 −0.02
Under protocol (7), use k = 0.5, γ ji = 0.1. The condition of Theorem 2 is satisfied. The sates
trajectories and the input signal under protocol (7) are depicted in Figures 4 and 5. Figure 6
depicts that variation of error. As we can see, the leader–following consensus is realized.

Figure 4. The states trajectories of six agents.

Figure 5. The input signal trajectories under protocol (7).

Electronics 2023, 12, 1279 11 of 15

Figure 6. The error trajectories.

4.3. Example 3
A leaderless multi-agent system with adaptive couplings is considered. In Equation (9), choose
−0.05
 
  0 0.03 0.02 0
0 −2 2 
 0 −0.06 0.03 0 0.03 

A =  2 0 −3 , c = 2.5, Γ = I3 , G (0) =  0.03 0.03 −0.06 0 0 .
   
 
−2 3 0  0.02 0 0 −0.02 0 
0 0.03 0 0 −0.03
From control protocol (10), we choose k = 1, γ ji = 0.2. The states and input control (10)
trajectories are described in Figures 7 and 8. The error σi (t) = xi (t) − x̄ (t) changes with time
as shown in Figure 9. Clearly, the average consensus is achieved under protocol (10) and
adaptive strategy (12). Figure 10 displays the changing of the coupling weights.
In this paper, we study the consensus problem of three different types of multi-agent
systems with fixed communication delays. It is not difficult to find from the experimental
results that multi-agent systems are mainly divided into two categories. One is a multi-
agent system with a leader, and the other is a multi-agent system without a leader. For a
leader–follower system, the state values of all agents in the system will eventually converge
to the state values of the leader. In a multi-agent system without a leader, the state values
of the agents will gradually converge under the action of the controller.
Electronics 2023, 12, 1279 12 of 15

Figure 7. The states trajectories of five agents.

Figure 8. The input signal trajectories of five agents.

Electronics 2023, 12, 1279 13 of 15

Figure 9. The error trajectories of five agents.

Figure 10. The adaptive coupling weights.

5. Conclusions
In this study, we investigate the consensus problem of fixed and adaptive coupled
multi-agent systems with communication delays. For fixed coupling multi-agent systems
and adaptive coupling multi-agent systems, we study three different models of multi-agent
Electronics 2023, 12, 1279 14 of 15

models, and give corresponding control strategies to offset the impact of communication
delay on multi-agent systems. The rationality of the proposed strategy and theorem is
proved by using Lyapunov theory and matrix inequality. Finally, the proposed theory is
verified by simulation experiments. In this paper, the communication delay is fixed, but in
life, the delay is often changed. Therefore, in the future research, the time-varying delay
will be the direction of our further research.

Author Contributions: Methodology, S.T. and Q.H.; Software, S.T.; Formal analysis, S.T.; Data
curation, Z.Q.; Writing review and editing, Y.T., T.W. and T.M.; Funding acquisition, B.Z. All authors
have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This work was supported in part by the Science and Technology Research Program
of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission in China (KJZD-K201901504, KJQN201901537,
and KJZD-K202100104), in part by the Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing (cstc2021jcyj-
msxmX1212, cstc2021jcyj-msxmX0146), in part by the West Light Foundation of the Chinese Academy
of Science, in part by the Open Foundation of Chongqing University of Science and Technology
No. cqsrc202110, in part by Bingtuan Science and Technology Program in China (No. 2021AB026),
in part by the Scientific Research Foundation of Chongqing University of Science and Technology
(No. ckrc2020027).
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interest or
personal relationship that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

References
1. Thakoor, O.; Garg, J.; Nagi, R. Multiagent UAV Routing: A Game Theory Analysis with Tight Price of Anarchy Bounds. IEEE
Trans. Autom. Sci. Eng. 2019, 17, 100–116. [CrossRef]
2. Krupa, P.; Limon, D.; Alamo, T. Harmonic Based Model Predictive Control for Set-Point Tracking. IEEE Trans. Autom. Control
2022, 67, 48–62. [CrossRef]
3. Guo, F.; Xu, Q.; Wen, C.; Wang, L.; Wang, P. Distributed secondary control for power allocation and voltage restoration in islanded
DC microgrids. IEEE Trans. Sustain. Energy 2018, 9, 1857–1869. [CrossRef]
4. Ding, L.; Han, Q.-L.; Guo, G. Network-based leader-following consensus for distributed multi-agent systems. Automatica 2013, 49,
2281–2286. [CrossRef]
5. Sader, W.; Wang, F.; Liu, Z.; Chen, Z. Distributed fuzzy fault-tolerant consensus of leader-follower multi-agent systems with
mismatched uncertainties. J. Syst. Eng. Electron. 2021, 32, 1031–1040. [CrossRef]
6. Zhang, J.; Zhang, H.; Luo, Y.; Liu, Y. Adaptive Event-Triggered Leader-Follower Consensus of Linear Multiagent Systems under
Directed Graph with Nonzero Leader Input. IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. II Express Briefs 2022, 69, 1442–1446. [CrossRef]
7. Tian, B.W. Leader-follower fixed-time consensus of multi-agent systems with high-order integrator dynamics. Int. J. Control 2017,
90, 1420–1427. [CrossRef]
8. Tian, K.; Guo, Z.; Mei, J.; Jiang, C.; Ma, G. Leaderless Consensus for Second-Order Inertia Uncertain Multi-Agent Systems under
Directed Graphs without Relative Velocity Information. IEEE Trans. Netw. Sci. Eng. 2021, 8, 3417–3429. [CrossRef]
9. Rezaee, H.; Abdollahi, F. Adaptive Leaderless Consensus Control of Strict-Feedback Nonlinear Multiagent Systems with Unknown
Control Directions. IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. Syst. 2021, 51, 6435–6444. [CrossRef]
10. Difilippo, G.; Fanti, M.P.; Mangini, A.M. Maximizing Convergence Speed for Second Order Consensus in Leaderless Multi-Agent
Systems. IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sin. 2022, 9, 259–269. [CrossRef]
11. Yang, J. A Consensus Control for a Multi-Agent System with Unknown Time-Varying Communication Delays. IEEE Access 2021,
9, 55844–55852. [CrossRef]
12. Li, C.; Liu, G.P.; Qi, L.; Li, J.; Du, Z.; Yang, X. Predictive Consensus for Networked Multi-Agent Systems with Switching Topology,
Input Delay and Time-Varying Communication Delays. IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. II Express Briefs 2022, 69, 444–448.
13. Zhu, Q.; Cao, J. Stability analysis of Markovian jump stochastic BAM neural networks with impulse control and mixed time
delays. IEEE Trans. Neural Netw. Learn. Syst. 2012, 23, 467–479.
14. Qing, W.; Wang, J.L.; Yan, H.L.; Ren, S.Y. Generalized lag synchronization of multiple weighted complex networks with and
without time delay. J. Frankl. Inst. 2018, 355, 6597–6616.
15. Xie, D.M.; Chen, J.H. Consensus problem of data-sampled networked multi-agent systems with time-varying communication
delays. Trans. Inst. Meas. Control 2013, 35, 753–763. [CrossRef]
16. Wang, C.Y.; Zuo, Z.Y.; Sun, J.Y.; Ding, Z. Consensus disturbance rejection for Lipschitz nonlinear multi-agent systems with input
delay: A DOBC approach. J. Frankl. Inst. 2017, 354, 298–315. [CrossRef]
17. Li, Z.X.; Ji, H.-B. Robust delay-dependent H∞ consensus control for multi-agent systems with input delays. Automatica 2014, 40,
2556–2562. [CrossRef]
Electronics 2023, 12, 1279 15 of 15

18. Tian, Y.P.; Liu, C.L. Robust consensus of multi-agent systems with diverse input delays and asymmetric interconnection
perturbations. Automatica 2009, 45, 1347–1353. [CrossRef]
19. Yu, J.; Wang, L. Group consensus in multi-agent systems with switching topologies and communication delays. Syst. Control Lett.
2010, 59, 340–348. [CrossRef]
20. Ge, X.; Han, Q.L.; Zhang, X.M. Achieving Cluster Formation of Multi-Agent Systems under Aperiodic Sampling and Communi-
cation Delays. IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron. 2018, 65, 3417–3426. [CrossRef]
21. Tu, Z.; Yu, H.; Xia, X. Decentralized finite-time adaptive consensus of multi-agent systems with fixed and switching network
typologies. Neurocomputing 2017, 219, 59–67. [CrossRef]
22. Mo, L.; Yuan, X.; Yu, Y. Neuro-adaptive Leaderless Consensus of Fractional-order Multi-agent Systems. Neurocomputing 2019, 339,
17–25. [CrossRef]
23. Lu, K.; Xu, H.; Zheng, Y. Distributed resource allocation via multi-agent systems under time-varying networks. Automatica 2022,
136, 110059. [CrossRef]
24. Ali, M.S.; Agalya, R.; Priya, B.; Kumar Thakur, G.; Asma Kauser, S. Reliable controller for nonlinear multiagent system with
additive time varying delay and nonlinear actuator faults. Math. Methods Appl. Sci. 2022, 45, 561–574.
25. Panda, D.K.; Das, S.; Townley, S. Toward a More Renewable Energy-Based LFC under Random Packet Transmissions and Delays
with Stochastic Generation and Demand. IEEE Trans. Autom. Sci. Eng. 2020, 99, 1217–1232. [CrossRef]

Disclaimer/Publisher’s Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual
author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to
people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.