Semi‐global leader–following output consensus of heterogeneous systems with all agents subject to input saturation

Abstract In this paper, we consider the semi‐global leader–following output consensus of heterogeneous multi‐agent linear systems over a directed communication graph with both the leader agent and the follower agents subject to input saturation. Via the low gain feedback design technique, both the state feedback and output feedback consensus protocols are constructed. In the state feedback case, a fully distributed observer is given to estimate the state of the leader agent. In the output feedback case, for both the informed follower agents and the uninformed follower agents, a state observer and a distributed leader state observer for each follower are designed to estimate the state of the follower itself and the state of the leader agent, respectively. In the distributed leader state observer, additional discontinuous functions are designed to suppress the influence of the bounded input of the leader agent. In both consensus protocols, a term under a condition similar to that used in the robust control is used to compensate for the control input of the leader agent.