In order to avoid congestion in the second-order nonlinear leader-following multiagent systems over capacity-limited paths, an approach called cluster lag consensus is proposed, which means that the agents in different clusters will pass through the same positions with the same velocities but lag behind the leader at different times. Lyapunov functionals and matrix theory are applied to analyze such cluster lag consensus. It is shown that when the graphic roots of clusters are influenced by the leader and the intracoupling of cluster agents is larger than a threshold, the cluster lag consensus can be achieved. Furthermore, the cluster lag consensus with a time-varying communication topology is investigated. Finally, an illustrative example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results. In particular, when the physical sizes of the agents are taken into consideration, it is shown that with a rearrangement and a position transformation, the multiagent system will reach cluster lag consensus in the new coordinate system. This means that all agents in the same cluster will reach consensus on the velocity, but their positions may be different and yet their relative positions converge to a constant asymptotically.

Aiming to solve the cluster lag consensus (CLC) problem of networked nonlinear agents with a switching topologies, this paper proposes a control algorithm based on the measurements of position and velocity. When the network has several clusters of agents, under the conditions that each cluster is a strongly connected digraph including isolated agents, and at least one agent in each cluster can communicate with the common leader each time, a sufficient condition is derived for reaching CLC. Finally, a numerical simulation is demonstrated to validate the proposed control algorithm and the developed conditions.

The consensus tracking problem means that a group of followers tracks the desired trajectory with local communication. In this article, partial components of cluster consensus have been considered. In this scenario, the $p$ components of the followers in different clusters track the leader at different lag times, while $p$ components of each agent in the same cluster reach a consensus, which is called $p$ components of cluster-lag (PCCL) consensus. By using a seminorm $\|x_{i}\|_{2,p}$ and a Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional, PCCL consensus for second-order multiagent systems with homogeneous nonlinear systems on cooperative–competitive networks has been considered. For the case that the communication network graph is undirected, a decentralized adaptive controller, which is based on the exchanged neighbors’ information from the same cluster, is designed such that all the agents reach PCCL consensus. For the directed graph case, an adaptive protocol based on the intracoupling strength is constructed for each cluster to achieve PCCL consensus. Finally, two simulation examples are illustrated to show the effectiveness of the proposed control protocols.