Observer-based hierarchical distributed optimal robust safety consensus control of multi-robot systems under actuator faults

This paper investigates the distributed optimal safety consensus problem for Multi-robot systems (MRSs) subject to channel noises, actuator faults, and external disturbances. To address this, we propose a novel hierarchical distributed robust safety control framework with a three-layer structure. In the upper layer, a resilient distributed optimal coordinator is designed to generate optimal references despite channel noises. Subsequently, the middle layer employs a fixed-time command filter to eliminate the impact of noises, extracting the continuously differentiable reference signals. In the lower layer, an observer-based robust safety control strategy is synthesized. Specifically, a fixed-time fault-disturbance observer (FxT-FDO) is implemented to rapidly estimate the lumped uncertainty. By incorporating the FxT-FDO output into the safety constraints, we develop a composite robust safety controller to guarantee the MRS achieve optimal safety consensus via solving the quadratic programming (QP). Simulation results demonstrate the superior robustness of the proposed control strategy.