Event-Based Model Predictive Control for the Cooperation of Distributed Agents

Abstract — This paper proposes an event-based framework for the control of a team of cooperating distributed agents. The agents are dynamically decoupled and they are controlled locally by Nonlinear Model Predictive Controllers (NMPC). The event-driven framework allows for triggering the solution of the optimal control problem of the NMPC only when it is needed. The scheduling of the control updates for each of the agents depends on an error of the state information received from the neighboring agents. Sufficient conditions for triggering are provided and the results are illustrated through a simulated example. I