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The multiagent system has the advantages of simple structure, strong function, and cost saving, which has received wide attention from different fields. Consensus is the most basic problem in multiagent systems. In this paper, firstly, the problem of partial component consensus in the first-order linear discrete-time multiagent systems with the directed network topology is discussed. Via designing an appropriate pinning control protocol, the corresponding error system is analyzed by using the matrix theory and the partial stability theory. Secondly, a sufficient condition is given to realize partial component consensus in multiagent systems. Finally, the numerical simulations are given to illustrate the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies bipartite consensus for first-order multiagent systems. To improve resource utilization, event-based protocols are considered for bipartite consensus. A new type of control gain is designed in the proposed protocols. By appropriate selection of control gains, the convergence rate of the closed-loop system can be adjusted. Firstly, for structural balance case, necessary and sufficient conditions are given on communication relations and consensus gains to achieve bipartite consensus. Secondly, for structural unbalance case, necessary and sufficient conditions are proposed to ensure the stabilizing of the system. It can be found that the system will not show Zeno behavior. Numerical simulations are used to demonstrate the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open source design (OSD) is an emerging cluster design mode based on Internet, and it takes full advantage of knowledge, technology, and resources among designers to promote product development. In this mode, designers’ behaviors of collaboration have important influence on product development process. In this paper, firstly collaboration flow including two types of collaboration relations between designers in open source design is depicted. Secondly, two-phase collaborative behavior model including partner selection and response is built by means of utility functions. At last, simulation experiment including 4 scenarios is designed based on open source project of mobile phone and conducted by multiagent simulation, and contrastive analysis is carried out to study collaboration behaviors’ impact on open source design process. The results show that the two-phase collaborative behavior model elaborately describes structure evolution of Open Source Community (OSC) as well as designers’ collaboration behaviors and that different ways of partner selection behaviors have significant impact on the evolution of OSD process as well as OSC structure. Furthermore, the results suggest that designers should better consider more the factor of matching degree between designers but less collaboration record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consensus of first-order and second-order multiagent systems has been wildly studied. However, the convergence of high-order (especially the third-order to the sixth-order) state variables is also ubiquitous in various fields. The paper handles consensus problems of high-order multiagent systems in the presence of multiple time delays. Obtained by a novel frequency domain approach which properly resolves the challenges associated with nonuniform time delays, the consensus conditions for the first-order and second-order systems are proven to be nonconservative, and those for the third-order to the sixth-order systems are provided in the form of simple inequalities. The method revealed in this article is applicable to arbitrary-order systems, and the results are less conservative than those based on Lyapunov approaches, because it roots in sufficient and necessary criteria of stabilities. Simulations are carried out to validate the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the distributed shortest-distance problem of multiagent systems where agents satisfy the same continuous-time dynamics. The objective of multiagent systems is to find a common point for all agents to minimize the sum of the distances from each agent to its corresponding convex region. A distributed consensus algorithm is proposed based on local information. A sufficient condition also is given to guarantee the consensus. The simulation example shows that the distributed shortest-distance consensus algorithm is effective for our theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops the distributed encirclement control problem of multiagent systems, in which each agent tracks multiple targets, each target can be tracked by one agent, and the numbers of the agents and the targets are the same or not. Firstly, an encirclement control protocol is proposed for multiagent systems, and this protocol contains some estimators. Secondly, some conditions are derived, under which multiagent systems can achieve encirclement control by circular formation. Finally, numerical simulations are provided to illustrate the obtained results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the output consensus regulation problem for discrete-time multiagent systems with state-unmeasurable agents and external disturbances under directed communication network topologies. Firstly, the mathematical model for the output consensus problem of discrete-time multiagent systems is deduced and formulated via making matrix transformation. Then, based on state observers, a novel output consensus protocol with dynamic compensator which is used as observer for the exosystem is proposed to solve this problem. Some knowledge of matrix theory and graph theory is introduced to design protocol parameters and the convergence of output consensus errors is proved. Finally, a numerical simulation example is shown to verify the effectiveness of the proposed protocol design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is devoted to the coordination control problem of heterogeneous first- and second-order multiagent systems with external disturbances. First, by applying the theory of eigenvalue and the method of model transformation, the consensus state of heterogeneous multiagent systems is obtained. Then, based on the consensus state, the control output is defined, and sufficient conditions are derived to make all agents reach consensus with H∞ performance. Finally, simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the controllability problem of multiagent systems with a directed tree based on the classic agreement protocol, in which the information communication topologies being a directed tree and containing a directed tree are both investigated. Different from the literatures, a new method, the star transform, is proposed to study the controllability of multiagent systems with directed topology. Some sufficient and necessary conditions are given for the controllability of such multiagent system. Numerical examples and simulations are proposed to illustrate the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the formation control problem without collisions for multiagent systems. A general solution is proposed for the case of any number of agents moving on a plane subject to communication graph composed of cyclic paths. The control law is designed attending separately the convergence to the desired formation and the noncollision problems. First, a normalized version of the directed cyclic pursuit algorithm is proposed. After this, the algorithm is generalized to a more general class of topologies, including all the balanced formation graphs. Once the finite-time convergence problem is solved we focus on the noncollision complementary requirement adding a repulsive vector field to the previous control law. The repulsive vector fields display an unstable focus structure suitably scaled and centered at the position of the rest of agents in a certain radius. The proposed control law ensures that the agents reach the desired geometric pattern in finite time and that they stay at a distance greater than or equal to some prescribed lower bound for all times. Moreover, the closed-loop system does not exhibit undesired equilibria. Numerical simulations and real-time experiments illustrate the good performance of the proposed solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the traditional four-step model is so simple that it cannot solve complex modern transportation problems, microsimulation is gradually applied for transportation planning and some researches indicate that it is more compatible and realistic. In this paper, a framework of agent-based simulation of travel behavior is proposed, which is realized by MATSim, a simulation tool developed for large-scale agent-based simulation. MATSim is currently developed and some of its models are under training, so a detailed introduction of simulation structure and preparation of input data will be presented. In practice, the preparation process differs from one to another in different simulation projects because the available data for simulation is various. Thus, a simulation of travel behavior under a condition of limited available survey data will be studied based on MATSim; furthermore, a medium-sized city in China will be taken as an example to check whether agent-based simulation of travel behavior can be successfully applied in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper mainly addresses the issue of 360MN extrusion machine and focuses on the stabilization control of main table attitude. We will first introduce the problem and then model the extrusion machine. As the machine is a multi-input multioutput (MIMO) and strong coupling system, it is challenging to apply existing control theory to design a controller to stabilize the main table attitude. Motivated by recent research in the field of multiagent systems, we design a consensus control protocol for our system and derive our convergence conditions based directly on Routh stability criterion. The advantages of the design are also demonstrated by numerical simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, a trend of forming dynamic supply chains with different trading partners over different e-marketplaces has emerged. These supply chains, which are called "supply mesh," generally refer to heterogeneous electronic marketplaces in which dynamic supply chains, as per project (often make-to-order), are formed across different parties. Conceptually, in a supply mesh a dynamic supply chain is formed vertically, mediating several companies for a project. Companies that are on the same level horizontally are either competitors or cohorts. A complex scenario such as this makes it challenging to find the right group of members for a dynamic supply chain. Earlier on, a multiagent model called the collaborative single machine earliness/tardiness (CSET) model was proposed for the optimal formation of make-to-order supply chains. This paper contributes the particular agent designs, for enabling the mediation of CSET in a supply mesh, and the possibilities are discussed. It is demonstrated via a computer simulation, based on samples from the U.S. textile industry, that by using intelligent agents under the CSET model it is possible to automatically find an ideal group of trading partners from a supply mesh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the leader-based consensus of heterogeneous multiple agents with nonlinear uncertain systems. Based on the information obtained from the following agents' neighbors, leader observers are designed by the following agents to estimate the leader's states and nonlinear dynamics. Then, to achieve leader-based consensus, adaptive distributed controllers are designed for the following agents to track the designed corresponding leader observers. The effectiveness of the leader observers and distributed consensus controllers are illustrated by formal proof and simulation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the constrained communication data rate and compute capability that commonly exists in multiagent systems, this paper modifies a current consensus strategy by introducing a kind of dynamic quantizer in both state feedback and control input and updates dynamic quantizers by employing event-triggered strategies, thus forming a new quantitative consensus strategy. The numerical simulation example is built for state quantization and the results show the consistency with expectation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates average consensus for multiagent systems with time-varying delay. A reducing dimension multiagent systems model is presented firstly. Using event-triggered mechanism to reduce network load, a comprehensive model is then proposed, which considers communication delay and triggered issue. Furthermore, the event-triggered average consensus stability of multiagent systems with fixed directed/undirected graph is analyzed, and sufficient conditions are provided. Moreover, the upper bound of time-varying delay can be obtained conveniently. Finally, simulation results confirm the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on theoretical analysis of second-order consensus in multiagent system. As an extension of the general linear protocol, a nonlinear protocol is designed formultiagent system with undirected communication topology. The nonlinear protocol is also applied to achieve reference velocity consensus. Through choosing the appropriate Lyapunov functions and using LaSalle's invariance principle, some consensus conditions are derived. Simulation examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the complexity of the practical environments, many distributedmultiagent systems cannot be illustrated with the integerorder dynamics and can only be described with the fractional-order dynamics. In this paper, collaboration control problems of continuous-time networked fractional-order multiagent systems via sampled control and sampling delay are investigated. Firstly, the sampled-data control of multiagent systemswith fractional-order derivative operator is analyzed in a directedweighted network ignoring sampling delay. Then, the collaborative control of fractional-order multiagent systems with sampled data and sampling delay is studied in a directed and symmetrical network. Many sufficient conditions for reaching consensus with sampled data and sampling delay are obtained. Some numerical simulations are presented to illustrate the utility of our theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SOAR is a cognitive architecture named from state, operator and result, which is adopted to portray the drivers' guidance compliance behavior on variable message sign (VMS) in this paper. VMS represents traffic conditions to drivers by three colors: red, yellow, and green. Based on the multiagent platform, SOAR is introduced to design the agent with the detailed description of the working memory, long-term memory, decision cycle, and learning mechanism. With the fixed decision cycle, agent transforms state through four kinds of operators, including choosing route directly, changing the driving goal, changing the temper of driver, and changing the road condition of prediction. The agent learns from the process of state transformation by chunking and reinforcement learning. Finally, computerized simulation program is used to study the guidance compliance behavior. Experiments are simulated many times under given simulation network and conditions. The result, including the comparison between guidance and no guidance, the state transition times, and average chunking times are analyzed to further study the laws of guidance compliance and learning mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]