Adaptive Prescribed-Time Consensus Tracking Control Scheme of Nonlinear Multi-Agent Systems Under Deception Attacks

This article investigates the adaptive prescribed-time consensus tracking control problem for nonlinear multi-agent systems (MASs), where the states of systems are unmeasured and the actuators suffer from the deception attacks. Firstly, a novel coordinate transformation technology is developed by introducing a time-varying constraint function, such that the prescribed-time tracking control problem of nonlinear MASs is converted into the constraint problem of the error variables. Then, a new attack compensator is proposed to address the unknown time-varying attack gains caused by the actuator deception attacks. Further, the state observers are designed to estimate the unavailable state variables and fuzzy-logic systems (FLSs) are employed to handle the unknown functions that exist within the systems. In addition, the attack compensator-based controller ensures the boundedness of all signals, while the error variables converge to the predefined region in a specified time. The upper bound of the whole tracking errors in the mean square sense can be decreased by selecting the appropriate design parameters. At last, the simulation example illustrates the availability of the developed control method. Note to Practitioners—In the industry, consensus tracking control of nonlinear MASs exists in many different systems, such as mobile robot networks, intelligent transportation management, surveillance and monitoring. Since the above systems operate in a network environment, the security problems of the systems cannot be ignored. Hence, considering the unmeasured states, the unknown functions, and the unknown time-varying attack gains existing simultaneously in the studied systems, it is a challenging and meaningful task to achieve the desired security control objectives. On the other hand, based on a time-varying constraint function, this article presents an adaptive prescribed-time consensus tracking control scheme for the nonlinear MASs under the deception attacks. It provides a viable strategy for industrial applications.