Agent-Based Finite-Time Leader-Following Consensus for Earth-Observation Tasks on Multiple Airships

In this technical note, we investigate the agent-based finite-time leader-following consensus for Earth-observation systems with multiple stratosphere airships, in which the high-order nonlinear dynamic and external disturbances are considered for multi-agent systems. Based on the distributed observer, which is used to acquire the state of the leader airship for the following airships, the dynamic cascade control is designed to realize the finite-time leader-following consensus for Earth-observation systems. It is mathematically proven that the convergence is finite for the stratosphere airship earth-observation system. Simulation results are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.