Cooperative control of multi‐agent systems with variable number of tracking agents.

A class of switched multi‐agent tracking problems with variable tracking number is explored. During the whole tracking course, tracking agents switch and the tracking number varies over different time intervals. Consequently, tracking errors jump and the dimension of Laplacian matrix of the multi‐agent system changes, which increase the difficulty of analysis. To solve this problem, the authors proposed a switched tracking strategy and designed an average norm of tracking errors as a Lyapunov function. Thereafter, conditions guaranteeing the stability of each subsystem and overall stability of the switched tracking system are obtained. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed tracking strategy and validity of the theoretical results are verified by a numerical simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]