Prescribed-time containment control of multi-agent systems subject to collision avoidance and connectivity maintenance

In this paper, the problem of prescribed-time containment control for a second-order multiple leader-follower systems (MLFSs) is studied, in where both collision avoidance and connectivity maintenance of the agents are considered. Firstly, an effective exponential potential field function (EAPF) with constraints based on the estimated distance is designed to achieve collision resistance and connectivity preservation of the agents at a prescribed-time. Secondly, an estimator-based distributed control protocol is proposed, which drives the agents to achieve containment control in a cooperative manner at a prescribed-time. Furthermore, a novel distributed control protocol containing a collision avoidance term and a containment control term is addressed as well, which enables all followers to complete collision avoidance and connectivity maintenance in any prescribed-time and enter the leaders' convex packet. Finally, the stability of the system is technically analyzed by using Lyapunov theory, and the effectiveness of the presented strategies is verified by several simulations.