Terminal-Time Synchronization of Multivehicle Systems under Sampled-Data Communications

This article presents a novel technique for terminal-time synchronization of multivehicle systems. Taking sampled-data communications into account, the terminal-time synchronization problem of multivehicle systems is formulated as three demands. An estimation of terminal time is introduced for each vehicle, and a cooperative algorithm is designed based on motion planning to synchronize all estimated terminal times by using only local sampled-data information. The proposed algorithm not only can ensure the consensus of estimated terminal times at appointed time, but also can make the estimates finally be equal to the actual terminal times. To avoid Zeno behavior, the explicit expression of the norm of the consensus error is formulated, based on which the sampling interval sequence is modified to realize appointed-time approximate consensus of the actual terminal times. Local controller is also designed for each vehicle to ensure the fixed-time convergence of the relative velocity normal to the line of sight, and thus the singularity of control input at terminal time instant is successfully avoided. Experiments are performed to verify the effectiveness of the algorithms.