Distributed secure consensus for multiagent systems based on removing intra-cluster coupling restrictions and its application to energy systems

Cluster consensus of multiagent systems has provided analytical techniques for various industrial domains. As agents work in networked environments, their secure consensus control becomes essential desirable in response to cyber attacks. At that point, we investigate the secure cluster consensus in directed network systems under deception attacks and mixed delays. First, a control strategy for improving arbitrarily fixed topologies based on an extended state observer is proposed to ensure cluster consensus. In the framework of the proposed strategy, several criteria are derived to guarantee cluster consensus for agents. Second, different from the current works that require sufficiently strong intra-cluster coupling strength, the proposed consensus condition ensures fewer intra-cluster coupling restrictions. Third, the Halanay inequality is used to handle the mixed delays and reduce the parameters in the consensus criterion, which improves the efficiency of verifying the consensus. Finally, the simulation results on the IEEE 39-bus energy system are provided for validating the effectiveness of the proposed method, while achieving excellent tracking performance for the frequency and power deviations.