Event‐Triggered Impulsive Control for Input‐To‐State Practical Consensus of Switched Positive Nonlinear Multi‐Agent Systems

Abstract

This paper investigates the input‐to‐state practical consensus (ISpC) problem for a class of leader‐following switched positive nonlinear multi‐agent systems (MAS) with exogenous disturbances. First, a dedicated coordinate transformation is proposed to map the non‐origin equilibrium to the origin, which eliminates analytical complexity and simplifies the stability analysis framework for multi‐constraint coupling scenarios. On this basis, a synchronous event‐triggered impulsive control protocol is designed to update the control input only at triggering instants determined by a global event condition based on aggregated local state errors, significantly reducing communication and control resource consumption. By constructing a mode‐dependent max‐separable Lyapunov function and using the average dwell time (ADT) switching rule, a sufficient criterion is derived to ensure ISpC, which explicitly establishes the matching relationship between continuous dynamic growth and impulsive control attenuation. Meanwhile, full‐process state nonnegativity is strictly guaranteed via invariant set analysis, and Zeno behavior is rigorously excluded. Finally, simulations on two switched positive nonlinear MAS with essentially different nonlinearities (a rational subhomogeneous case and an exponential‐saturation smart‐logistics case) confirm the effectiveness and communication‐saving advantages of the proposed method, which reduces control updates by approximately 89% and 97.1%, respectively, compared with periodic impulsive control.