Distributed multi-agent tracking and estimation with uncertain agent dynamics

This paper addresses distributed target tracking and estimation using multiple mobile agents whose dynamics are subject to uncertainties and disturbances. A consensus-based distributed estimator is applied to estimate the motion of the target. To compensate for the uncertainties in the dynamics and prevent them from propagating into the communication network, a cascaded control structure is proposed, which uses the L₁ adaptive controller to drive the real uncertain system to an ideal closed-loop system obtained from an existing flocking algorithm. Since the communication graph is induced by the position of the real agents, we cannot exactly implement the ideal flocking algorithm, which leads to coupling between the communication topology and the system dynamics. The guaranteed transient performance bounds of the L ₁ adaptive controller are essential towards resolving this coupling issue. Extensive simulation results demonstrate the capability of the proposed algorithms to recover the desired flocking behavior.