Integral Second-Order Sliding Modes for Robust Prescribed-Time Leader-Follower Consensus Control with Partial Information

In this paper, the possibility of generating second order integral sliding modes for the robust finite-time solution of leader-follower consensus problems in cooperative multi-agent systems (MAS) is presented. A novel approach is discussed for agents with first or second order dynamics, able to enforce convergence exploiting only partial information (i.e. the relative distance between the first state of each agent and those of its neighbours) under the assumption that the network graph contains a directed spanning tree. The adoption of integral sliding manifolds allows for the elimination of the reaching phase, which in turn guarantees robustness from the initial time instant, and consensus reaching in prescribed time. Chattering alleviation is discussed in order to obtain a continuous control. The proposal is analysed both in theory and simulation, where the obtained results highlight the validity of the strategy.