  We consider both leaderless and leader-follower, possibly nonlinear, networks
affected by time-varying communication delays. For such systems, we give a set
of sufficient conditions that guarantee the convergence of the network towards
some desired behaviour while simultaneously ensuring the rejection of
polynomial disturbances and the non-amplification of other classes of
disturbances across the network. To fulfill these desired properties, and prove
our main results, we propose the use of a control protocol that implements a
multiplex architecture. The use of our results for control protocol design is
then illustrated in the context of formation control. The protocols are
validated both in-silico and via an experimental set-up with real robots. All
experiments confirm the effectiveness of our approach.
