Fully Distributed and Attack-Immune Protocols for Prescribed-Time Consensus by Using Periodic Delayed Relative Output

This study investigates the problem of achieving consensus within a prescribed time for general linear multiagent systems (MASs) operating over directed communication graphs, particularly when agents can only access relative output data via their onboard sensors. Under the assumption of strong observability, we design a periodic delayed output measurements-based distributed observer to recover the relative state information. Leveraging the reconstructed states, a linear time-varying control protocol is developed to ensure consensus is attained within the desired time. In contrast to conventional approaches, our method brings several key benefits. Most importantly, it removes the requirement for direct data exchange over the network, making the system inherently robust against cyber-attacks. Furthermore, the protocol is entirely distributed, which enhances adaptability to dynamic communication structures. At last, since the proposed method utilizes linear state feedback, it avoids the need for real-time solutions of system-related differential equations, thus reducing computational overhead. Numerical simulations demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed strategy.