Fixed-Time Cooperative Control of Multi-Agent Systems

This monograph presents new theories and methods for fixed-time cooperative control of multi-agent systems. Fundamental concepts of fixed-time stability and stabilization are introduced with insightful understanding. This book presents solutions for several problems of fixed-time cooperative control using systematic design methods.

The book compares fixed-time cooperative control with asymptotic cooperative control, demonstrating how the former can achieve better closed-loop performance and disturbance rejection properties. It also discusses the differences from finite-time control, and shows how fixed-time cooperative control can produce the faster rate of convergence and provide an explicit estimate of the settling time independent of initial conditions.

This monograph presents multiple applications of fixed-time control schemes, including to distributed optimization of multi-agent systems, making it useful to students, researchers and engineers alike.

Dr Zongyu Zuo received his B.Eng. Degree in automatic control from Central South University, Hunan, China, in 2005, and Ph.D. Degree in control theory and applications from Beihang University (BUAA), Beijing, China, in 2011. He is currently an Associate Professor at the School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University. He was an academic visitor at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Manchester from September 2014 to September 2015 and held an inviting Associate Professorship at Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science, UMR CNRS 8201, Unversité de Valenciennes et du Hainaut-Cambrésis in October 2015 and May 2017. Dr Zuo has held two authorized patents and published fifty-nine fully-refereed high quality journal articles. He received the 2nd prize of natural science award of Tianjin in 2018, the 3rd prize of GF Technological Invention Award in2017, and the 3rd prize of Military Science and Technology Progress in 2012, and the IEEE CNGCC Best Paper Finalist Award in 2016.

Professor Qing-Long Han is currently Pro Vice Chancellor (Research Quality) and University Distinguished Professor at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. He is a leading researcher at the international level in the field of Control Theory and Control Engineering. He is a Fellow of The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and a Fellow of The Institution of Engineers Australia. He is a Highly Cited Researcher. In March 2010, he was appointed a prestigious Chair by China’s Ministry of Education, “Chang Jiang (Yangtze River) Scholar Chair Professor” in recognition of his outstanding contributions to Control Theory and Control Engineering. Professor Han has been conducting research in the field of Control Theory and Control Engineering. He has published over four hundred fully-refereed papers in prestigious journals and leading conferences, three monographs, one research-based book chapter, and edited four conference proceedings and six special issues.

Dr Boda Ning is currently a Research Fellow at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. He was a recipient of the Vice-Chancellor's Research Scholarship (2013-2017) and the Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Students Abroad in 2017. Dr Ning has been conducting research in the field of control systems. He has published seventeen fully-refereed papers in journals and conferences. Dr Ning has served as an active reviewer for many top international journals including Automatica; IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control; IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics; IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics; IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics; IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems; IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems; and IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems.