International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems 21(5) (2023) 1692-1703 ISSN:1598-6446 eISSN:2005-4092

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12555-021-1060-6 http://www.springer.com/12555

Distributed Fuzzy Extended Kalman Filter for Multiagent Systems

Xiaobo Zhang*  , Haoshen Lin, Gang Liu, and Bing He

Abstract: In this study, a novel distributed Kalman filter based on a possibilistic framework was proposed to mit-
igate fuzzy noisein nonlinear multiagent systems. To describe fuzzy uncertainty, noises were modeled as fuzzy
random variables with trapezoidal probability distributions instead of Gaussian distributions. A fuzzy information
fusion (FIF) algorithm was proposed to fuse fuzzy state estimations from neighboring nodes. The nonlinear problem
was solved by using local linearization. A distributed extended fuzzy information filter was designed by combining
the FIF algorithm and local linearization in distributed sensor networks. The stability of this filter was analyzed.
Finally, a target tracking simulation was performed to detail the effectiveness of the proposed filter algorithm.

Keywords: Consensus, distributed filtering, extended Kalman filtering, fuzzy uncertainty.

1. INTRODUCTION ously. Several studies have focused on using fuzzy logic

Distributed Kalman filters (DKFs) have been used in
many applications because they are inexpensive and ex-
hibit higher robustness than that of centralized Kalman fil-
ters [1,2] in terms of target tracking, environmental mon-
itoring, and area surveillance. For nonlinear systems, the
consistency distributed filters include the distributed ex-
tended Kalman filter (DEKF) [3], distributed unscented
Kalman filter [4], and distributed cubature Kalman filter
[5]. DEKF [3,6] provides an accurate solution to the state
estimation problemin which the priori knowledge of the
noises and accurate filter models are prerequisites. In sev-
eral nonlinear systems,a priori knowledge of noises is un-
available. Furthermore, inaccurate filter models consider-
ably increase the risk of filter divergence. For example,
because of sensor drift and unknown complex environ-
ments, uncertain noises are present in measurements con-
ducted during exploration [7]. Because of the complexity
of large-scale systems, the relationship among systems is
unclear, and quantitative indicators cannot accurately de-
scribe the real state of a system. For noncooperative ob-
jects, existing models are highly inaccurate because their
performance depends on the experience of experts. For a
new sensor, obtaining statistical data is difficult, and data
are obtained based on experience, which leads to fuzzi-
ness. To mitigate uncertainty in system noises and models,
fuzzy filtering theory was proposed by combining fuzzy
logic and Kalman filters in many studies.
The fuzzy theory was first introduced in [8]. Fuzzy
logic and the Kalman filter have been combined previ-
to strengthen standard estimators or compensate for in-
adequate information regarding the model or noise statis-
tics. In [9], typical fuzzy rules were used to estimate the
(state) noise variance-covariance matrix based on the dif-
ference between the measurement and its predicted value.
[10] proposed event-based distributed filtering approach
to nonlinear stochastic systems over sensor networks, in
which the system was represented by the Takagi-Sugeno
(TS) fuzzy model. Longo et al. [11] applied fuzzy rules
combined with a probabilistic Kalman filter for localiza-
tion of mobile robots, in which fuzzy logic was used for
sensor fusion outside the state estimation process. Shi et
al. [12] established asynchronous filtering for discrete-
time switched TS fuzzy systems. Notably, although fuzzy
logic and the Kalman filter were combined in these stud-
ies, Gaussian noises were used in the process and observa-
tion noises of these filters; that is, the estimates obtained
by these filters were consistent with conventional proba-
bility distribution.
However, real-world scenarios involve nonlinear sys-
tems with fuzzy noise, and noise may not be symmetric.
Thus, Gaussian distributions are not always appropriate.
For example, a proximity sensor, which provides the dis-
tance to an object, exhibits more positive than negative
systematic errors. In the Global Positioning System, ob-
servation noise may not exhibit a Gaussian distribution
because of sensor drift [13]. Outliers in a legged loco-
motion system may result in non-Gaussian noise with un-
known forms [14]. To address these fuzzy noises, Matía
[15] introduced fuzzy random variables (FRVs) and pro-

Manuscript received December 15, 2021; revised May 11, 2022 and June 15, 2022; accepted June 16, 2022. Recommended by Associate
Editor Sung Hyun Kim under the direction of Senior Editor Choon Ki Ahn.

Xiaobo Zhang, Haoshen Lin, Gang Liu, and Bing He are with the Department of Electronic Engineering, PLA Rocket Force University of
Engineering, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710025, China (e-mails: {zhangxiaobo102800, linhaoshen1, liug029}@163.com, hb830513@126.com).
* Corresponding author.

©ICROS, KIEE and Springer 2023

 Distributed Fuzzy Extended Kalman Filter for Multiagent Systems 1693

posed a novel fuzzy Kalman filter (FKF) in a possibilis- 2. PROBLEM FORMULATION

tic framework in which Gaussian distribution is replaced
by the trapezoidal probability distribution (TPD). Thus, The DSE problem over the sensor network can be for-
non symmetric processes and observation noises as well mulated as follows: Consider the nonlinear dynamical sys-
as higher inaccuracies in both process and observation tem
models are obtained. The FKF exhibits aniteration form
xt+1 = f (xt ) + wt , (1)
similar to that of the conventional Kalman filter on the
probability framework, which ensuresthat the estimation where xt ∈ Rn is the target state at time k. State xt is ob-
is optimal from the recursive least-square estimation per- served by a network of N sensors, and the measurement
spective. Thus, the use of the FKF based on explicit fuzzy mapping of sensor i is expressed as follows:
variables has been investigated in both practical and the-
oretical applications. Ye et al. [16] used the method pro- yi,t = hi (xt ) + vi,t , (2)
posed by [15] to represent uncertainty, Yang et al. [17]
applied the FKF to passive location, and Zhou et al. [18] where yi,t ∈ Rmi is the measurement obtained by sensor
improved the theory of [15] and subsequently applied it to i. The communication between agents can be represented
fault prediction. Mata et al. [19] proposed an alternative using undirected graphs G = {V, E}, where V and E rep-
method to represent uncertainty by using trapezoidal dis- resent the set of vertices and edges, respectively. Ni,in ,
tributions to mitigate computation in [15]. Jimenez et al. { j ∈ V | ( j, i) ∈ E, ∀ j 6= i} and Ni,out , { j ∈ V | (i, j) ∈ E,
[20] implemented the method of [15] by introducing deep ∀ j 6= i} denote the in-neighbors and out-neighbors of i.
analysis and conducted detailed simulations and real ap- Ni , Ni,in ∪ {i} represents the inclusive neighbors of i.
plications. However, these studies are not distributed. In Unlike classical probabilistic estimates, which are de-
particular, Lin et al. [21] proposed the corresponding dis- rived using Gaussian functions, the noise represented by
tributed version of the FKF for linear systems using an FIF wt and vi,t is assumed to be an FRV, as in [15,21], and its
algorithm. Zhang et al. [22] proposed a distributed FKF membership function is modeled as a TPD to account for
for linear systems under switching topology. fuzzy noise characteristics.
However, the results of these two studies could not be A possibility distribution π is a mapping from Ω to [0,
directly applied to the nonlinear setting. The research of 1] (Ω may be a discrete universe, that is, Ω = {C1 , ..., Cq },
the study contributed to the ongoing research activity. In or a continuous universe, that is, Ω = R). The value πΩ (x)
this study, a novel distributed extended fuzzy information is called the possibility degree of the value x in Ω. A pos-
filter (DEFIF) was proposed by embedding the FIF archi- sibility distribution Π(x(1) ; x(2) ; x(3) ; x(4) ) is called TPD if
tecture into the distributed state estimation (DSE) and by its membership function satisfies the following:
performing local linearization at each node to overcome 
x(2) − x
1 − (2) , if x(1) ≤ x ≤ x(2) ,

nonlinearity. The contributions of this study can be sum- 
(1)

 x − x
marized as follows: 

if x(2) < x ≤ x(3) ,

1,
1) The process and observation noise were modeled as πΩ (x) = (3)
 x − x(3) (3) (4)
FRVs. Next, the fuzzy state estimations from neigh- 1 − (4) , if x < x ≤ x ,


x − x(3)


boring nodes were fused by using an FIF algorithm.



0, else.

The nonlinear problem was solved using local lin-
earization.
Assume an FRV x defined by a TPD (Fig. 1). We define
2) A DEFIF was designed for nonlinear fuzzy systems the expectation of x as follows:
by combining the FIF algorithm and local lineariza-
tion in distributed sensor networks on the possibilistic E[x] ∼ Π(x(1) ; x(2) ; x(3) ; x(4) ). (4)
framework.
3) The stability of the DEFIF was analyzed and simula-
tions were performed to confirm the effectiveness of
the proposed filter algorithm.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows:
Section 2 presents preliminary information regarding TPD
and graph theory in addition to problem formulation. Sec-
tion 3 describes the DEFIF for nonlinear systems. Section
4 describes the analysis of the stability of the DEFIF al-
gorithm. Section 5 details numerical simulations on object Fig. 1. An fuzzy random variables x defined by a trape-
tracking. Concluding remarks are presented in Section 6. zoidal possibility distribution.
1694 Xiaobo Zhang, Haoshen Lin, Gang Liu, and Bing He

The area, center of gravity, and uncertainty of the dis- In this study, a suitable distributed fuzzy filtering algo-
tribution are given as follows [15]: rithm was formulated for a nonlinear system with fuzzy
Z noise to ensure that at any time t ∈ Z+ , each agent i can ob-
χx = πX (x)dx, (5) (1) (2) (3)
tain its local posterior estimation E[x̂i,t ] ∼ Π(x̂i,t ; x̂i,t ; x̂i,t ;
X
R (4) (1) (2) (3)
xπX (x)dx x̂i,t ) by fusing {y j,t , R j,t } and E[x̄ j,t ] ∼ Π(x̄ j,t ; x̄ j,t ; x̄ j,t ;
C[x] = x̃ = , (6) (4)
χx from neighbors j ∈ Ni,in (t) based on local measure-
x̄ j,t )
P̂x = U[xC[(x − x̃)2 ]. (7) ment (2) and the global equation of motion (1). Specifi-
The expectation, central gradient, and uncertainty of wt cally, we focused on solving the following problems. First,
and vi,t are expressed as follows [15]: how can the TPDs obtained from different neighbors be
fused? Second, how should the nonlinear problem be han-
(1) (2) (3) (4)

E[wt ] ∼ Π(wt ; wt ; wt ; wt ),
 dled and how should the local estimation be updated for
w̃t = C[wt ] = 0, (8) each agent such that the proposed filter is fully distributed?

 Third, how can the boundedness of the estimation errors
U[wt ] = Qt .
of the proposed algorithm be analyzed?
 (1) (2) (3) (4)
E[vi,t ] ∼ Π(vi,t ; vi,t ; vi,t ; vi,t ),
 The following common DKF assumptions are made
ṽi,t = C[vi,t ] = 0, (9) [28].
Assumption 1: The undirected graph G is connected,


U[vi,t ] = Ri,t .
and the system is observable.
Remark 1: Studies have assumed that noises wk and
Assumption 2: The true state xt is independent of vi,t ,
vi,k follow some probability distribution (e.g., Gaus-
and xt 0 is independent of wt [2], ∀t,t 0 ∈ Z+ and t 0 > t, that
sian distribution). However, in practice, in many sys-
is
tems,noiseis modeled as FRVS. For example, Matía mod-
eled the data from the LIDAR sensor on the Doris robot C[xt v> >
i,t ] = 0, C[xt 0 wt ] = 0; (10)
platform as a TPD because the complexity and inaccuracy
of the calibration method cause distrust[34]. Furthermore, and for each agent
if the noise does not follow a “bell-curve” shape, is unbal-
C[vi,t v>j,t ] = 0, ∀i 6= j, (11)
anced, or some distrust exists about the subjective value, a
possible region can be used to cover changing noise char- C[(x̄i,t − xt )v>j,t ] = 0, ∀i, j. (12)
acteristics. Moreover, noises in some physical systems can
Assumption 3: The functions f and hi are twice con-
be modeled as FRVs rather than random variables [23].
tinuously differentiable on Rn , where n = dim(x).
For example, when using measurement tools that directly
detail the accuracy interval (e.g., a radar sensor with an
accuracy of +/ − 2 mm [24], a thermocouple with an ac- 3. DEFIF FRAMEWORK
curacy of +/ − 2.2◦ C [25]), the distribution of the interval To address the problem of distributed estimation for
values within the system will be accurate. nonlinear system with fuzzy noise, we first briefly review
Remark 2: FRVs exhibit many distribution shapes. We the extended FKF (EFKF) in [15] and FIF algorithm in
restricted the analysis to the trapezoidal distribution be- [21]. Next, we provide the DEFIF algorithm.
cause in practice, a criterion to define the distribution Consider nonlinear dynamics (1). The update steps of
shape between the possible and the impossible regions the EFKF proposed in [15] are as follows:
is yet to be established. Triangular [26], rectangular, and  (l) (l)
singleton distributions are particular cases of trapezoidal 
 x̂t = [I −Wt Ht ]x̂t +Wt yt ,

distributions. For example, Serrurier and Prade [27] used  > > −1
Wt = P̂t−1 Ht [Ht P̂t−1 Ht + Rt ] ,



the maximum possibilistic informational distance princi-
P̂t = [I −Wt Ht ]P̂t−1 , (13)
ple to develop a TPD from a set of data that follows 
 (l) (l)
unknown multimodal nonsymmetric probability distribu- x̂t+1 = Ft x̂t ,




tions and build a triangular possibility distribution from a

P̂t+1 = Ft P̂t Ft> + Qt ,

set of data that follows a skewed normal probability dis-
tribution. (l) (l)
where Ft = (∂ f /∂ x)|C(x̄t ), Ht = (∂ h/∂ x) | C(x̄t ), yt is
The state xt inherits the uncertainty of the noise, as de- the real measurement, and the updating gain matrix Wt is
fined in (8) and (9). Thus, the problem considered in this obtained by minimizing the uncertainty matrix P̂t .
study differs from the DSE problem based on the proba- To fuse fuzzy random variables, Lin et al. [21] proposed
bilistic framework. The predictive estimation set and pos- the FIF algorithm,which can be obtained by using a linear
teriori estimation set of xt by agent i are denoted as {x̄i,t , combination of TPDs and uncertainty matrix estimates for
P̄i,t } and {x̂i,t , P̂i,t }, respectively. any possible unknown correlation as follows:
 Distributed Fuzzy Extended Kalman Filter for Multiagent Systems 1695

(l)
Lemma 1 (Fuzzy information fusion): Suppose {x1 , The local estimate of agent i is expressed in the infor-
(l) (l) (l)
P11 }, {x2 , P22 }, ..., {xn , Pnn } are n estimate sets of the mation form by using the fuzzy information vector ϕ̄i,t ,
same fuzzy variable x defined by E[x] ∼ Π(x(1) ; x(2) ; x(3) ; (l)
P̄i,t−1 x̄i,t and uncertainty information matrix Φ̄i,t , P̄i,t−1 .
x(4) ). Next, the general form of the FIF can be expressed Furthermore, the novel observation of agent i is defined
as follows: in the form of an information pair as follows:
n
(l) (l) (l) (l)
xc(l) = Pcc ∑ ωi Pii−1 xi , (14) ζi,t = Hi,t> R−1
i,t (yi,t − h(x̄i,t ) + Hi,t x̄i,t ), (21)
i=1
n Ξi,t = Hi,t> R−1
i,t Hi,t , (22)
Pcc−1 = ∑ ωi Pii−1 , (15)
(l)
i=1 where Hi,t = (∂ h/∂ x)|x̄i,t . Agent i ∈ V collects the local
where ωi ∈ [0, 1] and ∑ni=1 ωi = 1. Further, for all choices novel observation with the local information fuzzy infor-
(l) (l)
of ωi and unknown correlation mation vector ϕ̄i,t , P̄i,t−1 x̄i,t and uncertainty information
matrix Φ̄i,t , P̄i,t−1 to obtain the local posterior information
P̃i j = C[(x − C[xi ])(x − C[x j ])> ], (16) pair.
(l)
The estimate set {xc , Pcc } satisfies the following proper-
(l) (l) (l)
ties: ϕ̂i,t = P̄i,t−1 x̄i,t + ζi,t , (23)
1) xc is unbiased as long as each xi is unbiased, i.e., Φ̂i,t = P̄i,t−1 + Ξi,t . (24)

x̃c = C[xc ] = C[x], i f x̃i = x̃. (17) 2) Consensus iteration step

(l)
2) {xc , Pcc } is guaranteed to be consistent as long as
(l)
each estimate set {xi , Pii } is consistent; that is
Pcc ≥ P̃cc , i f Pii ≥ P̃ii , (18)
where P̃cc = C[(x − x̃c )(x − x̃c )> ], and P̃ii = C[(x −
x̃i )(x − x̃i )> ].
Proof: The proof can be found in [21].  and the fused estimate at the Lth consensus iteration step
In the DSE, each agent estimates fuzzy state xt in a
timely manner based on the global dynamic (1), local mea-
surements (2), and information from the neighbors. In the
proposed DEFIF, each network node runs a local predic-
tion step and an information fusion update step. The pre-
diction step can be obtained based on (13) as follows,
(l)
where, Fi,t = (∂ f /∂ x)|C(x̄i,t ).
(l) (l)
x̄i,t = f (x̂i,t−1 ), (19)
P̄i,t = Fi,t P̂i,t−1 Fi,t> + Qt . (20)
Remark 3: Lemma 1 reveals that the prerequisite for
the unbiasedness of the FIF algorithm is the unbiased-
ness of the local information, whereas the unbiasedness of
the local information is not tenable under nonlinear condi-
tions. Therefore, to utilize the FIF algorithm to fuse infor-
mation from neighbor nodes, the nonlinearity should be
eliminated in the update step. We used local linearization
to overcome the nonlinearity in the process and measure-
ment model.
The information fusion update step can be designed by
incorporating the local linearization step and consensus it-
erations step.
1) Local linearization step
In the second step, the information is spread through the
network through consensus. Consensus is used to perform
a collective computation over the entire network through
iteration in each node of the network and perform regional
computations of the same type involving only a subset of
neighbor nodes. Subsequently, each agent transmits the lo-
(l)
cal posterior information pair (ϕ̂i,t , Φ̂i,t ) to its neighbors.
FIF algorithms are used to fuse fuzzy information pairs,
is specified as follows:
 (l)
i j (l)
ϕ̂i,t (L + 1) = ∑ ω ϕ̂i,t (L),


j∈Ni
Φ̂i,t (L + 1) =

 ∑ ω i j Φ̂i,t (L),
j∈Ni
i ∈ V, L = 1, 2, . . . , S. (25)
For each sensor node i, the initial vector and initial ma-
(l) (l)
trix are set as ϕ̂i,t (1) = ϕ̂i,t and Φ̂i,t (1) = Φ̂i,t . The lo-
cal estimation and uncertainty matrix can be obtained as
(l) (l)
P̂i,t = [Φ̂i,t (S)]−1 , and x̂i,t = [Φ̂i,t (S)]−1 ϕ̂i,t (S).
In each consensus iteration, each node i computes a
regional average, which is a combination of the values
associated with its neighbors that have suitable consen-
sus weights ω i j . In this study, a convex combination was
adopted by assuming ∑ j∈Ni ω i j = 1, ∀i ∈ V, where ω i j > 0
represents the weights that agent i assigns to the infor-
mation received from neighbor j. The weights should be
selected to maximize the confidence. In this study, the
conclusion presented in [29] is considered, according to
which,
1/ε j
ωij = , (26)
∑m∈Ji 1/εm
1696 Xiaobo Zhang, Haoshen Lin, Gang Liu, and Bing He

Table 1. DEFIF for agent i at time k. for an order of convergence greater than one under suitable
assumptions.
(l)
At time t, obtain prior information P̄i,t , x̄i,t , The relationship among the estimation errors ẽi,t = xt −
Perform the local linearization step: (l)
C(x̄i,t ) can be derived from Lemma 1 as follows:
Obtain the novel information pair:
(l) (l)
ζi,t = Hi,t> R−1 i,t (yi,t − h(x̄i,t ) + Hi,t ),
(l)
ẽi,t = xt − C(x̄i,t ) = C(xt − x̄i,t ) = C(ei,t ),
(l) (l)
(29)
> −1
Ξi,t = Hi,t Ri,t Hi,t ,
(l) (l)
Obtain the local posterior information pair: where ei,t = xt − x̄i,t . In this case, the boundedness of ẽi,t
(l) (l) (l)
ϕ̄i,t = P̄i,t−1 x̄i,t + ζi,t , (l)
can be converted into that of C(ei,t ). The boundedness of
Φ̄i,t = P̄i,t−1 + Ξi,t . (l)
C(ei,t ) can be proved as follows:
Perform the consensus iteration step By investigating the aforementioned Taylor expansions,
(l)
For L=1 to S C(ei,t ) can be expressed in terms of linearized and nonlin-
(l) (l)
ϕ̂i,t (L + 1) = ∑ j∈Ni ω i j ϕ̂i,t (L) ear terms as follows:
Φ̂i,t (L + 1) = ∑ j∈Ni ω i j Φ̂i,t (L) Proposition 1: The DEFIF algorithm can be initialized
End For at time t = 1 with the positive definite information matri-
Update the local estimation and uncertainty matrix ces Φ̄i,1 . For any i and any t, the matrices Φ̂i,t are invertible
(l) (l)
P̂i,t = [Φ̂i,t (S)]−1 , x̂i,t = [Φ̂i,t (S)]−1 ϕ̂i,t (S); (l) (l)
and C(ei,t ) = C(xt − x̄i,t ) obey the recursion
(1) (2) (3) (4)
E[x̂i,t ] ∼ Π(x̂i,t ; x̂i,t ; x̂i,t ; x̂i,t );
x̃i,t = C[x̂i,t ], U[x̂i,t ] = P̂i,t ; (l)
C(ei,t+1 )
(l) (l)
Prediction:
(l) (l)
= C( ∑ ωLi j Fi,t (Φ̂i,t )−1 Φ̄ j,t e j,t + ϕ(xt , x̂i,t )
x̄i,t+1 = f (x̂i,t ), Fi,t = (∂ f /∂ x)|C(x̂i,t ) j∈Ni
(l)
Φ̂i,t+1 = Qt − Qt Fi,t (Φ̄i,t + (Fi,t )> Qt Fi,t )−1 (Fi,t )> Qt (l)
+ ∑ ωLi j Fi,t (Φ̂i,t )−1 (H j,t )> R−1 j
j,t χ (xt , x̄ j,t )). (30)
j∈Ni
where ε j , tr(P̄j,t ).
Proof: The predicted and estimated uncertainty metrics
Ω denotes the consensus matrix, whose elements are
can be expressed as follows:
the consensus weights ω i j for any i, j ∈ N . Furthermore,
ωLi j represents the (i, j)-th element of ΩL , that is, the Lth Φ̄i,t+1 = (Fi,t (Φ̂i,t )−1 (Fi,t )> +W −1 )−1 , (31)
power of the consensus matrix Ω. The consensus matrix Ω
is row stochastic and primitive provided that the network and
is strongly connected.
The recursive form of the DEFIF algorithm has been Φ̂i,t = ∑ ωLi j Φ̄ j,t + ∑ ωLi j (H j,t )> R−1
j,t H j,t . (32)
j∈Ni j∈Ni
summarized in Table 1. Notably, the DEFIF algorithm is
fully distributed and can overcome the nonlinear problem In this case, Φ̄i,1 > 0, i ∈ N implies that Φ̂i,t > 0, i ∈ N
of systems with fuzzy noises. for any finite t. Moreover,
Remark 4: In this study, the consistency of DEFIF al-
(l) (l)
gorithms is not tenable under nonlinear conditions, as de- ei,t+1 = f (xt ) − f (x̂i,t ) + wt (33)
tailed from the proof of Theorem 2 in [21]. However, Sec- (l) (l)
= Fi,t (xt − x̂i,t ) + ϕ(xt , x̂i,t ) + wt . (34)
tion 4 reveals that the DEFIF algorithms enjoy local stabil-
ity provided that, similarly to the linear case, suitable con- (l)
Furthermore, the estimate x̂i,t can be expressed as follows:
nectivity and collective observability assumptions hold.
h
(l) (l)
x̂i,t = (Φ̂i,t )−1 ∑ ωLi j Φ̄ j,t x̄ j,t
4. STABILITY ANALYSIS j∈Ni
i
(l)
The stability characteristics of the DEFIF are described + ∑ ωLi j (H j,t )> R−1
j,t ȳ( j,t) , (35)
in this section. Because the DEFIF is based on the lin- j∈Ni

earization paradigm, according to Assumption 3, func- (l)

tions f and hi can be expanded as follows: with ȳ( j,t) , as indicated in Table 1. According to (36), the
following identity holds
(l) (l) (l)
f (xt ) − f (x̂i,t ) = Fi,t (xt − x̂i,t ) + ϕ(xt , x̂i,t ), (27) h
(l) (l) (l) xt = (Φ̂i,t )−1 ∑ ωLi j Φ̄ j,t xt
hi (xt ) − hi (x̄i,t ) = Hi,t (xt − x̄i,t ) + χi (xt , x̄i,t ). (28) j∈Ni
i
Here, functions ϕ and χi are the remainders of the Taylor + ∑ ωLi j (H j,t )> R−1
j,t H j,t xt . (36)
expansion of f and hi , respectively, which approach zero j∈Ni
 Distributed Fuzzy Extended Kalman Filter for Multiagent Systems 1697

Because S1 S2 S3
H j,t xt − ytj = H j,t (xt − x̄ j,t ) − ytj + h j (x̄ j,t )
= H j,t (xt − x̄ j,t ) + h j (x̄ j,t ) − h j (xt ) − v j,t
= χ j (xt , x̄ j,t ) − v j,t , (37)

a straightforward calculation yields the following: S6 S5 S4

(l) (l)
xt − x̂i,t = (Φ̂i,t )−1 ( ∑ ωLi j Φ̄ j,t (xt − x̄i,t )
j∈Ni Fig. 2. Communication topology graph among sensors.
(l)
+ ∑ ωLi j (H j,t )> R−1 j
j,t (χ (xt , x̄i,t ) − v j,t )).
j∈Ni
follows:
(38)  
sin(Ωt T ) tT)
1 Ωt 0 − 1−cos(Ω
Ωt 0
Subsequently, the following formula can be derived 0 − sin(Ωt T )
0 cos(Ωt T ) 0
 

Fct = 0 1−cos(Ω tT) sin(Ωt T )
 , (42)
 
(l) 1 0
C(ei,t+1 )  Ωt
0 sin(Ωt T )
Ωt 
0 cos(Ωt T ) 0 
(l) (l)
= C( ∑ ωLi j Fi,t (Φ̂i,t )−1 Φ̄ j,t e j,t + ϕ(xt , x̂i,t ) 0 0 0 0 1
j∈Ni  T2 
(l) 2 0 0
+ ∑ ωLi j Fi,t (Φ̂i,t )−1 (H j,t )> R−1 j
j,t χ (xt , x̄ j,t ) T 0 0 
j∈Ni 
T2

Gct =  0 2 0 , (43)
∑ ωLi, j Fi,t (Φ̂i,t )−1 (H j,t )> R−1
 
+ wt − j,t v j,t ). (39) 0 T 0 
j∈Ni
0 0 1
According to (8) and (9), the last two terms of (39) are as reported in [29]. wt = [wt,x , wt,y , wt,z ]T , wt,x , wt,y , wt,z
zero. Subsequently, (34) can be obtained.  denote the noise terms for the acceleration in the x and y
(l)
The boundedness of C(ei,t ) can be established using directions and for the turn rate.
Proposition 1. N (N = 6, in this study) nonlinear sensors were used
Theorem 1: Assumptions 1-3 are considered to be sat- to measure the angle and distance of the noncooperative
isfied in this study. Assume that nonnegative reals ā and target. The measurement by sensor i (i = 1, 2, ..., N) can
c̄ and positive reals ω and ω̄ exist such that kFi,t k ≤ ā, be defined as follows:
(l)
kHi,t k ≤ c̄, 0 < ωI ≤ Φ̂i,t ≤ ω̄I. In this case, C(ei,t ) is h ϑ −ϑi 
i,t
bounded; that is yi,t = arctan ,
i,t − i
q i
(l)
lim sup C(ei,t ) ≤ ∞. (40) (i,t − i )2 + (ϑi,t − ϑ i )2 + vi,t , (44)
t→∞

where vi,t = [vi,tx , vi,ty ]T represents the fuzzy noise with

Proof: The proof has been provided in Appendix A. 
5. NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS
This section describes the evaluation of the effective-
ness of the proposed DEFIF for a target tracking problem.
Consider that a target moves in a two-dimensional plane
with a constant speed and constant turn rate Ωt . The tar-
get dynamics can be modeled using a coordinated turning
(CT) model with the following Cartesian velocity:
xk+1 = Fct xt + Gct wt ,
where xt = [t , ˙t , ϑt , ϑ̇t , Ωt ]T ; t and ˙t denote the po-
sition and velocity in the x axial direction, respectively;
and ϑt and ϑ̇t denote the position and velocity in the y ax-
ial direction, respectively. Here, Fct and Gct are defined as
unknown uncertainty matrix Ri,t , and (i , ϑ i ) is the loca-
tion of sensor i. The following expressions are defined
i = −200 + i ∗ 50, (45)
i i
ϑ = 500 + (−1) ∗ (i − 1) ∗ 10. 2
(46)
These settings render the position arrangement of the
sensors to be disordered, which represents actual applica-
tion scenarios. The communication topology graph for the
sensors is displayed in Fig. 2. The number of consensus
steps in the subsequent simulations is L = 1.
(41) The CT model is used to generate the target trajec-
tory. The following settings are introduced: initial state
x0 = [−140 m, 20 m/s, 0 m, 20 m/s, 5 rad/s]T , sample time
Ts = 0.1 s, and total simulation time Tt = 50 s. Because
the sensors cannot accurately obtain the initial state in-
formation of the target, the initial states are set as xi,0 =
1698 Xiaobo Zhang, Haoshen Lin, Gang Liu, and Bing He

1 1 1 1

0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5

0 0 0 0
-10 0 10 -2 0 2 -0.02 0 0.02 -0.02 0 0.02

(a) TPD for ∆i,0 . (b) TPD for ∆˙i,0 . (a) TPD for wtx . (b) TPD for wty .

1 1 1

1
0.5 0.5 0.5
0.5

0 0 0
-10 0 10 0
-2 0 2
-2 0 2 -0.1 0 0.1
10-3
(c) TPD for ∆ϑi,0 . (d) TPD for ∆ϑ̇i,0 . (c) TPD for wtz . (d) TPD for vi,tx .

1 1

0.5 0.5

0 0
-0.1 0 0.1 -5 0 5
10-3
(e) TPD for ∆Ωi,0 . (e) TPD for vi,ty .

Fig. 3. TPDs for the initial state errors ∆xi,0 . Fig. 4. TPDs for the nosies wt and vi,t .

Estimated trajectories by each sensor

x0 + ∆xi,0 . The initial errors ∆xi,0 = [∆i,0 , ∆˙i,0 , ∆ϑi,0 , 140
True trajectory
∆ϑ̇i,0 , ∆Ωi,0 ]T are modeled as fuzzy variables with the pos- 120 True starting point
sibility distribution displayed in Fig. 3. The initial inputs Sensor1
Sensor2
100
of the filter are x̄i,0 = x0 + C[∆xi,0 ] and P̄i,0 = U[∆xi,0 ]. Sensor3
Sensor4
In general, wt = [wtx , wty , wtz ]T and vi,t = [vi,tx , vi,ty ]T are 80 Sensor5
Sensor6
modeled as zero-mean white noise with covariance matri-
y (m)

60
ces Qw and Rv , respectively. In this study, the noise terms
wt and vi,t are modeled using the possibility distribution 40
displayed in Fig. 4. 20
By using these simulation settings, a random trajectory
0
of the target was created. Subsequently, the trajectories es-
timated by each sensor are generated using the DEFIF al- -20
-160 -140 -120 -100 -80 -60
gorithms, as displayed in Fig. 5. x (m)
Figs. 6-9 illustrate the estimates of t , ˙t , ϑt , and ϑ̇t of
the target state quantity by sensor 1. The solid lines in- Fig. 5. The true trajectory and estimated trajectories by
dicate the TPD, and the dashed line indicates the center each sensor.
of gravity (i.e., the final estimate of the target state). The
estimate always is within the possible region. Moreover,
as time elapses, the coverage area of the TPD rapidly de- of the possible regions is nearly invariant, which satisfies
creases. The average width of the TPD is smaller than that the requirement of the coherence of the size of regions
of the distribution defined for the noise models and initial [15].
error. This finding revealed that the fuzziness of the es- Overall, 200 independent Monte Carlo trials were per-
timation decreased with the increase in the algorithm re- formed, and the mean square estimation errors of posi-
cursions. Furthermore, the evolutionary trajectories of the tion (MSEP) and mean square estimation errors of veloc-
four vertices of the TPD tend to be parallel. Thus, the size ity (MSEV) were computed as the performance indices.
 Distributed Fuzzy Extended Kalman Filter for Multiagent Systems 1699

-50 150

100

-100 50
-130
-140
0
-150
0 0.2 0.4
-150 -50
0 1 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5
Time (s) Time (s)
Fig. 6. The estimates of the target state quantity by sensor Fig. 8. The estimates of the target state quantity by sensor
1, possibility distribution evolution of t . 1, possibility distribution evolution of ϑt .

60 250

40 200

20 150

0 100

-20 50

-40 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5
Time (s) Time (s)
Fig. 7. The estimates of the target state quantity by sensor Fig. 9. The estimates of the target state quantity by sensor
1, possibility distribution evolution of ˙t . 1, possibility distribution evolution of ϑ̇t .

The MSEP and MSEV of agent i can be defined as fol-
lows:
Nment
1
MSEPti =
Nment ∑ ( p̂i,tj − pt )T ( p̂i,tj − pt ),
j=1
Nment
1
MSEVti =
Nment ∑ (v̂i,tj − vt )T (v̂i,tj − vt ),
j=1
where pt , [px,t , py,t ]T = [xt (1), xt (3)]T represents the
true position vector, and vt , [vx,t , vy,t ]T = [xt (2), xt (4)]T
denotes the true velocity vector. Furthermore, p̂i,t , [i,t ,
ϑi,t ]T = [x̂i,t (1), x̂i,t (3)]T and v̂i,t , [˙i,t , ϑ̇i,t ]T = [x̂i,t (2),
x̂i,t (4)]T are the corresponding estimated position vector
and velocity vector of agent i, respectively.
The performances of the proposed DEFIF are compared
with those of the fuzzy extended Kalman filter (FEKF)
in [19] and the centralized fuzzy extended Kalman filter
(CFEKF). Fig. 10 present a comparison of the MSEP and
MSEV between DEFIF, FEKF, and CFEKF. Because of
inadequate research on the CFIF, this study caused the
DFIF degenerate to the CFIF by assuming that graph G
(47) is strongly connected. Notably, the weight ωi j,k in CFEKF
is set as ωi j,k = N1 instead of calculating the suboptimal
solution according to (26). The results revealed that the
(48) estimation error of DEFIF is close to that of the CFEKF,
although the DEFIF is inferior to the centralized version
in the average sense. The results also revealed that the es-
timation error of the DEFIF is superior to the FEKF in
[19].
Remark 5: The results revealed that combining the FIF
algorithm and local linearization in distributed sensor net-
works is effective, and the local estimation error is uni-
formly bounded. Furthermore, the agents pass fuzzy in-
formation to other agents in the DEFIF algorithm; conse-
quently, the estimation accuracy of the entire multiagent
system can be increased.
1700 Xiaobo Zhang, Haoshen Lin, Gang Liu, and Bing He

MSE of position MSE of position

15
Sensor1 of DEFIF
Sensor2 of DEFIF L=1
Sensor3 of DEFIF
Sensor4 of DEFIF
12
Sensor5 of DEFIF L=5
Sensor6 of DEFIF
CFEKF
10
MSE of position (m)

MSE of position (m)

FEKF

10
8
10
6
5
5
4
0
4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 3 3.5 4 4.5
Time (s) Time (s)
MSE of velocity MSE of velocity
200 35
Sensor1 of DEFIF
Sensor2 of DEFIF L=1
Sensor3 of DEFIF
Sensor4 of DEFIF
Sensor5 of DEFIF 30 L=5
Sensor6 of DEFIF
MSE of velocity (m/s)

150 CFEKF MSE of velocity (m/s)

FEKF
25

20
100 15

10
15
5
50 10
0
4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 3.4 3.6 3.8 4 4.2 4.4 4.6
Time (s) Time (s)

Fig. 10. A comparison of the MSEP and MSEV be- Fig. 11. A comparison of the MSEP and MSEV of the DE-
tween the proposed DEFIF algorithm, FEKF, and FIF algorithm with diffident consensus iterations.
CFEKF.

sibility distributions instead of Gaussian distributions.

To analyze the influence of the consensus iterations on The fuzzy state estimations from neighboring nodes were
the performance of DEFIF, the MSE of the DEFIF algo- fused by a FIF algorithm. The nonlinear problem of the
rithm with various consensus iterations are considered, as fuzzy system model was solved using local linearization.
displayed in Fig. 11. The results revealed that with an in- Subsequently, the combination of the FIF algorithm and
crease in the number of consensus iterations L, the esti- local linearization was used to implement distributed esti-
mation error decreases. Furthermore, the estimation errors mation. The results demonstrated that under network con-
of various agents become consistent with the increase in nectivity and collective observability, the proposed DEFIF
L. However, increasing the number of iterations increases algorithm can ensure local stability in all network nodes.
the communication and energy consumption. Therefore, The proposed algorithm was used to solve a target track-
an appropriate number of iterations should be selected ac- ing problem to examine its effectiveness. A limitation of
cording to the accuracy requirements and communication the proposed approach is that the computational burden of
constraints. DEFIF is considerably higher than that of the conventional
probability version because all the updates of fuzzy vari-
6. CONCLUSION ables should calculate the four feature points of the TPD.
Future studies should focus on examining how the effi-
A novel DEFIF algorithm was proposed to solve the dy- ciency of the method can be enhanced using different FIF
namic state estimation problem for fuzzy noise and non- techniques. Another open problem is whether stronger sta-
linear systems. Fuzzy noises were modeled using pos- bility properties can be achieved on the fuzzy distributed
 Distributed Fuzzy Extended Kalman Filter for Multiagent Systems 1701

estimation problem using other linearization paradigms, where the final inequality is based on the fact that Φ̂i,t ≥
ij
such as volume Kalman filtering. ∑ j∈Ni ωL Φ̄ j,t and Lemma 2 of [30]. Consequently,

(l) (l) (l)

APPENDIX A: PROOF OF THEOREM 1
Vt+1 (Ψt et ) = ∑ pi ( ∑ Ψti j e j,t )> Φ̄i,t+1 ∑ Ψti j e j,t
i∈N j∈Ni j∈Ni

Let p denote the Perron-Frobenius left eigenvector of (A.11)

(l) (l)
matrix ΩL and pi denote its i th component. Consider the ≤ β̃ ∑ , j ∈ Ni p i
ωLi j (e j,t )> Φ̄ j,t e j,t
candidate Lyapunov function i∈N
(A.12)
(l) (l) (l)
Vt (et ) = ∑ pi (ei,t )> Φ̄i,t ei,t , (A.1) = β̃ p j (l) (l)
(e j,t )> Φ̄ j,t e j,t = β̃ Vt (et ).
(l)
i∈N ∑
j∈Ni
(l) (l) (A.13)
where et = i ∈ N ). Eigenvector p has strictly
col(ei,t ,
positive components pi , i ∈ N and satisfies the equation
For Vt+1 (rt ), the following inequality holds
p> ω L = p> , i.e., ∑ j∈N p j ωLj,i = pi . Because the predicted
uncertainty can be expressed as in (35), it is easy to verify
[Vt+1 (rt )]1/2 ≤ ᾱ 1/2 krt k ≤ ᾱ 1/2 ∑ rti , (A.14)
that suitable positive constants ω + , ω̄ + exist such that 0 < i∈N
ω + I ≤ Φ̄i,t+1 ≤ ω̄ + I for any i and t. This result implies
that suitable positive constants α, ᾱ exist such that (l)
where rti can be expressed as in (A.6). Because ϕ(xt , x̂i,t )
(l)
αkek2 ≤ Vt (e) ≤ ᾱkek2 , (A.2) and χ j (xt , x̄ j,t )
is bounded, it can thus be concluded that
Vt+1 (rt ) is bounded. This concludes the proof. 
for any t and e (all pi are positive). According to the trian-
gular inequality, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
h i1/2 h i1/2
(l) (l)
Vt+1 (et+1 ) ≤ Vt+1 (Ψt et ) + [Vt+1 (rt )]1/2 , No conflict of interest exists in the submission of this
(A.3) manuscript, and the manuscript is approved by all authors
for publication.
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Xiaobo Zhang received his B.S. and M.S.
degrees from the Space Engineering Uni-
versity, China, in 2007 and 2011, respec-
tively. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D.
degree in control science and engineering
with the Rocket Force University of Engi-
neering (RFUE), China. His research inter-
ests include information processing, con-
trol theory, and distributed estimation.
 Distributed Fuzzy Extended Kalman Filter for Multiagent Systems 1703

Haoshen Lin received his Ph.D. degree in

control science and engineering from the
RFUE, China, in 2021. His research inter-
ests include information processing, con-
trol theory, and distributed estimation.

Gang Liu received his B.S. and M.S.

degrees from the RFUE, in 1988 and
1991, respectively, and a Ph.D. degree
from Northwestern Polytechnical Univer-
sity, in 1998. He is currently a Professor
with RFUE. His research interests include
adaptive signal processing, system model-
ing, and fault diagnosis.

Bing He received his B.S., M.S., and

Ph.D. degrees from the RFUE, in 2005,
2008, and 2012, respectively. He is cur-
rently a Professor with RFUE. His re-
search interests include signal processing,
control theory, and artificial intelligence
technology.

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