Distributed adaptive finite-time fault-tolerant cooperative control of heterogeneous multi-agent systems with saturation and disturbances

In this paper, the issue of distributed adaptive finite-time fault-tolerant cooperative control (FT-FTCC) problem is investigated for multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) with unknown parameter uncertainties, actuator faults, input saturation and external disturbances. Starting from the dynamic models of the UAVs and UGVs, an unified control model is presented. Then, a sliding-mode estimator is presented to estimate the position of the leader for the followers which only uses the information from neighbours. Next, a distributed adaptive FT-FTCC scheme, which can also deal with the uncertainties, actuator faults, input saturation and disturbances, is proposed by utilising disturbance observers and neural networks. Based on Lyapunov function approach, the tracking errors of all followers subject to the pre-defined desired positions are uniformly ultimately bounded. Finally, simulations are given to validate the efficiency of the developed FT-FTCC scheme.