Containment Control of Heterogeneous Discrete-Time Multiagent Systems with Time Delay

In this paper, the containment control of heterogeneous MASs with multi-interactional leaders is addressed. The objective of the containment control is of two layers. The leaders converge to an expected form; subsequently, the followers enter the convex hull spanned by the leader’s final position. To achieve the goal, the dynamics of the leaders and the followers are modeled by a single integrator and a double integrator, respectively. A reduced-order transformation is employed to obtain the sufficient conditions for realizing the follower agents’ control. In this manner, the maximum allowed time delay is given. Moreover, based on the topological structure and matrix, it confirms that the followers are able to enter the expected convex hull. Finally, the numerical simulation reveals the effectiveness of the control strategy.