Finite-Time Distributed Resilient Tracking Control for Nonlinear MASs with Application to Power Systems

In this article, we study the finite-time distributed resilient tracking control problem for nonlinear multiagent systems under denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. To solve the problem, a new hierarchical control method is proposed, which includes a resilient distributed observation layer, a local performance improvement layer, and a decentralized tracking layer. Specifically, a novel model transformation method is first introduced in the resilient distributed observation layer to transform the reference system into a quasi-block diagonal controllable canonical form. Based on this form, a new finite-time distributed resilient observer is designed by introducing a switching mechanism to the observer inputs. Driven by this resilient observer state, a new local reference signal generator is designed for each agent in the local performance improvement layer. The designed local reference signal satisfies that 1) it can track the reference signal after a finite-time; and 2) its high-order derivatives exist. Then, a decentralized finite-time controller is designed by using the backstepping technique in the decentralized tracking layer. It is shown that the outputs of all agents converge to the reference signal after a finite time. Finally, the effectiveness of our developed method is shown by applying the finite-time distributed resilient method to power systems.