Distributed PWM Control for Asymptotic State Agreement of Multi-Agent Systems in Directed Switching Networks with Time Delays

In this paper, a distributed pulse-width-modulated (PWM) control problem is studied for asymptotic state agreement of single-integrator agents with time delays. The interactions between agents can be nonlinear, and the communication topology is allowed to be directed and time-varying, provided that a mild joint connectivity condition is satisfied. Due to the presence of nonlinear dynamics, time delays and switching topologies, conventional control methods cannot be readily applied to solve the coordination problem, especially in the context of distributed PWM control. To this end, a systematic solution is developed in this paper to overcome the dilemma—necessary and sufficient conditions are provided for achieving asymptotic state agreement of the PWM-controlled multi-agent systems. Numerical examples are included to illustrate the theoretical results.