Cooperative Output Regulation of Nonlinear Multiagent Systems under a General Directed Graph

This paper studies the cooperative output regulation problem for a class of nonlinear multiagent systems modeled by nonlinear dynamics under a general directed communication topology. A type of distributed internal model is introduced to convert the cooperative output regulation problem into a robust stabilization problem of a so-called augmented system. Based on the Lyapunov stability theorem and -matrix theorem, a kind of distributed output feedback controller only using the relative outputs of neighboring agents together with its stability analysis is further proposed with the aid of the backstepping technology, under which the outputs of the followers will asymptotically converge to that of the leader if, for each follower, there exists at least a directed path from the leader to the follower. Finally, a numerical example is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the analytic results.