Passivity based distributed tracking control of networked Euler-Lagrange systems

In this paper we present three distributed control laws for the coordination of networked Euler-Lagrange (EL) systems. We first reformulate the passivity-based control design method in Arcak (2007) by considering that each edge is associated with an artificial spring system instead of the usual diffusive coupling among the communicating agents. With this configuration, the networked EL system possesses a ”symmetric” feedback structure which together with the strict passivity of both agents’ and edges’ dynamics lead to a strictly passive network dynamics. Subsequently we present the networked version of two different passivity- based tracking controllers that are particular cases of our method and the one in Arcak (2007). Numerical simulation is presented to show the performance of the proposed methods