Observer-Based Leader Follower Network Multi-Motor Drive: An Agent-Based Coordination Control Approach

The multi-agent consensus control is inspired by Mother Nature, such as the collective hovering of birds. This coordinated motion of birds has gained wider attraction due to its ability to model various control problems, requiring coordinated activities. In the proposed study, the problem of having identical speed for a system with multiple motors is addressed by designing a unique observer-based consensus control algorithm aimed to acquire speed consensus, i.e., identical speed, defined by the leading agent. Furthermore, the proposed system design is novel in the sense that multi-motor speed design with network observer consensus control is never explored before. The observer makes it possible for the agents to estimate the leader speed via neighboring agents and observer. Thus, the leader speed is estimated by an ith observer, via collecting the speed data of the jth agent and the observer. Moreover, the ith agent is a non-inverting chopper drive, forming a multi-motor system, while the stability of this switched multi-agent system is validated by a common Lyapunov function. The proposed system is simulated in MATLAB and proved to be more efficient than existing methods.