Multilayer control for group consensus of Multi-Agent Systems: A novel delay-free averaging-based stability method

Within the multilayer control framework, a role-based control architecture is introduced for the achievement of containment and group consensus control objectives in the different layers. The main novelties rely in: i) considering multiple time scales in the different interactive networks, more appropriate for real-world Multi-Agent Systems; ii) enabling a periodic rather than a continuous interaction among agents, which is beneficial in terms of communication overhead reduction. An averaging method, involving a delay-free transformation, is employed and a novel presentation of the whole networked system as rapidly time-varying system is obtained. Stability time-scale dependent LMIs conditions are derived by means of Lyapunov method. Numerical results validate the theoretical derivation.