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In this paper, the $ H_{\infty } $ H ∞ consensus problem of stochastic nonlinear multi-agent systems with time-delay, Markov jump and $ (x, u, v) $ (x , u , v) -dependent noises is studied. Firstly, the $ H_{\infty } $ H ∞ consensus problem is transformed into a standard $ H_{\infty } $ H ∞ control problem by model transformation. Then, a dynamic output feedback control protocol is constructed by solving a set of linear matrix inequalities to ensure that the closed-loop system achieves the mean square consensus and meets the specified $ H_{\infty } $ H ∞ performance level. After that, both delay-independent and delay-dependent stochastic bounded real lemmas are established by taking advantage of the Lyapunov–Krasovskii function method and the generalised It $ \hat {\rm {o}} $ o ^ formula. Finally, we illustrate the validity of the developed method with numerical simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the adaptive consensus problem of general linear multi‐agent systems. Finite‐time consensus and fixed‐time consensus are both discussed. In order to remove the dependence on global information about system topology, distributed adaptive mechanisms are introduced. Compared with the existing asymptotic consensus results, the system's convergence speed is improved by the proposed distributed finite‐time consensus protocol. Furthermore, a distributed fixed‐time consensus protocol is proposed to remove the dependence on system's initial state. Under the fixed‐time consensus protocol, it is proved that an upper bound of the system's convergence time can be estimated. Sufficient conditions are given to ensure that all agents can achieve consensus in finite time and fixed time, respectively. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed protocols is illustrated by a simulation example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the controllability of multi-agent systems by equitable partition and automorphism. For the case that cells are incompletely connected outside but completely connected inside, a necessary condition for controllability is given from the perspective of the rank of connection matrix. For the case of multiple cells being completely connected outside and incompletely connected inside, in terms of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of L and L π , several sufficient and necessary conditions for controllability are presented. Once the quotient graph is controllable under single input or all nodes in nontrivial cells are leaders, the lower bound of controllable subspace is determined. Finally, we give the gap between the necessary condition and the sufficient condition for controllability from the aspect of equitable partition. One highlight of the results in this paper is that we show sufficient conditions to judge controllability by equitable partition and automorphism, which, for specific cases, provides one method that how to break through the defect that equitable partition can only obtain necessary conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Event‐triggered consensus of multi‐agent systems (MASs) under directed topology is investigated in this paper. First, one shortcoming about the event‐trigger conditions in some recent results is pointed out through a counterexample. Then, two reasonable event‐trigger conditions are proposed and analyzed. Meanwhile, a novel dynamic event‐trigger strategy is applied in the two designed event‐trigger conditions, in which an auxiliary term is introduced for each agent to regulate its threshold dynamically. It is proved that the dynamic term plays an essential role in excluding Zeno behavior. The case of strongly connected topology is first investigated. Then, the results are extended to the more general topology containing a spanning tree. Numerical example is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the designed event‐trigger conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the optimisation problem of second-order multi-agent systems. Distributed optimisation algorithms are proposed based on sampling data. Two kinds of sampling techniques, namely, aperiodic sampling and dynamic event-triggered sampling, are utilised. Moreover, the proportional integral (PI) strategy is utilised in the proposed algorithms. Compared with the existing distributed optimisation algorithm based on periodic sampling, the proposed algorithm dependent on aperiodic sampling is more general. Compared with the existing steady event-triggered algorithm, the distributed optimisation algorithm based on dynamic event-triggered sampling has the merit of lower energy consumption. Under the assumption that the global cost function is strongly convex about global minimum point, it is proved that the proposed algorithms solve the optimisation problem. Lyapunov stability theory is applied to give sufficient criteria guaranteeing convergence to optimal point. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is illustrated by numerical simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the effects of different models on the controllability of leader‐follower dynamics system based on Laplacian matrix are studied, and the controllability results applicable to general model are obtained. Our research is based on three different control modes, namely, broadcast control, UI$$ {U}_I $$ control, and non‐broadcast control, which cover all the control modes in the general model. Specifically, we first identify the relation of different UI$$ {U}_I $$ control, that is, if the system is controllable under i1$$ {i}_1 $$ different control signals, then increasing the number of control signals does not change the controllability of the system. Furthermore, it is proved that in a fixed topology, when the number of control inputs is increased, the controllability of the system is not correlated with the controllability of the original system, which appears counter‐intuitive. But the spectral radius of the Gramian matrix of the controllable system is increased. In addition, we analyze the condition number of Gramian matrix. Based on the above conclusions, we put forward the concept of hierarchical equivalent partition (HEP), and prove that under the general model, the existence of HEP makes the system uncontrollable. Finally, we expect to find a way to make the system controllable under the general model. Therefore, we obtain sufficient conditions for the system to be controllable. As a by‐product, we find that there is no completely uncontrollable graph when the general model with broadcast control is removed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with adaptive event-triggered consensus of general linear multi-agent systems (MASs). Leaderless consensus and leader-following consensus are both considered. In order to avoid dependence on global information about system topology and reduce communication frequency, distributed adaptive event-triggered consensus protocols are designed. Through model transformation, the consensus problems of MASs are transformed into the stability problems of the corresponding error systems. By using algebraic graph theory and Lyapunov stability theory, some sufficient criteria for MASs to achieve consensus are obtained. Meanwhile, it is proved that the proposed event-trigger conditions can exclude Zeno behaviour effectively. One simulation example is provided to validate the effectiveness of obtained theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper constructs a lower dimensional multi-agent system (MAS) utilizing the structural decomposition of system matrix. Through equivalent transformation, it has been proven that the sampling controllability of the original system is inherited by the lower dimensional system, allowing us to further obtain a criterion for determining the sampling controllability based on topology structure and sampling period. The paper also applies state feedback to the protocol design of MAS during the sampling period, achieving that the sampled-data MAS can still maintain controllability in uncontrollable topologies, and controllability is unaffected by the sampling period. Finally, numerical examples are provided for verification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, by analyzing the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of Laplacian $L$ , we investigate the controllability of multiagent systems under equitable partitions. Two classes of nontrivial cells are defined according to the different numbers of links between them, which are completely connected nontrivial cells (CCNCs) and incompletely connected nontrivial cells. For the system with CCNCs, a necessary condition for controllability is found to be choosing leaders from each nontrivial cell, the number of which should be one less than the cardinality of the cell. It is shown that the controllability is affected by three factors: 1) the number of the links between nontrivial cells; 2) the rank of the connection matrix; and 3) the odevity of the capacity of the nontrivial cells. In the case of nontrivial cells under the equitable partition, there are automorphisms of interconnection graph $\mathcal {G}$ , which induce the eigenvectors of $L$ with zero entries. For the system with automorphisms, by taking advantage of the property of eigenvectors associated with $L$ , we propose several graphical necessary conditions for controllability. In addition, by the PBH rank criterion, the controllable subspaces of the system with different classes of nontrivial cells are compared. Finally, a necessary and sufficient condition for controllability under minimum inputs is given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consensus problem of multi-agent systems with general second-order dynamics is studied. A distributed event-triggering strategy is proposed to reduce the communication frequency of agents and the update frequency of event-triggering controller. Under the fixed topology, a consensus protocol and event-triggering function are designed for each agent. The sufficient conditions of consensus are obtained by the stability theory, and the theoretical proof of excluding Zeno behaviour is presented. Finally, a simulation example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the obtained results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The event-triggered consensus problems of multi-agent systems without and with time delay under directed topology are investigated, respectively. The event-checkings are only implemented at periodic time instants. Under the designed consensus algorithm, the sampling period is permitted to be arbitrarily large. Another advantage of the designed consensus algorithm is that, for systems with time delay, consensus can be achieved for any finite delay only with the requirement that it is bounded by the sampling period. The case of strongly connected topology is first investigated. Then, the result is extended to the most general topology which only needs to contain a spanning tree. A novel method based on positive series is introduced to analyze the convergence of the closed-loop systems. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, event-triggered leader-following consensus of general linear multiagent systems under both fixed topology and switching topologies is studied. First, centralised and decentralised event-triggered control strategies based on neighbors' state estimation are proposed under fixed topology, in which the controller is only updated at the time of triggering. Obviously, compared with the continuous time control algorithms, the event-triggered control strategies can reduce the communication frequency among agents effectively. Meanwhile, event-triggering conditions are derived for systems to achieve consensus by using the Lyapunov stability theory and model transformation method. Then, the theoretical results obtained under the fixed topology are extended to the switching topologies, and the sufficient conditions for the system to achieve leader-following consensus under the switching topologies are given. However, different from fixed topology, the control input of each agent is updated both at event-triggering and topology switching time. Finally, Zeno behaviors can be excluded by proving that the minimum triggering interval of each agent is strictly positive, and the effectiveness of the event-triggered protocol is verified by simulation experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the bipartite consensus problem of heterogeneous multiagent systems composed of first-order and second-order agents is considered by utilizing the event-triggered control scheme. Under structurally balanced directed topology, event-triggered bipartite consensus protocol is put forward, and event-triggering functions consisting of measurement error and threshold are designed. To exclude Zeno behavior, an exponential function is introduced in the threshold. The bipartite consensus problem is transformed into the corresponding stability problem by means of gauge transformation and model transformation. By virtue of Lyapunov method, sufficient conditions for systems without input delay are obtained to guarantee bipartite consensus. Furthermore, for the case with input delay, sufficient conditions which include an admissible upper bound of the delay are obtained to guarantee bipartite consensus. Finally, numerical simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the Jordan form of system matrix, this paper discusses algebraic conditions for the controllability of the multiagent network system with directed graph from two aspects: leader-follower network attribute and coupling input disturbance. Leader-follower network attribute refers to the topology structure and information communication among agents. Coupling input disturbance includes the number of external coupling inputs and the selection of leader nodes. When the leader-follower network attribute is fixed, the selection method of coupling input disturbance is studied for the controllability, and when the coupling input disturbance is known, we derive necessity and sufficiency conditions to determine the controllability. The reliability of theoretical results is verified by numerical examples and model simulation. Besides, the generally perfect controllability is introduced, that is, the system is always controllable regardless of the number and the locations of leaders. In practical engineering applications, the perfectly controllable topology can improve the system fault tolerance and accelerate the commercialization process, which has a profound significance for promoting the modernization process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bipartite consensus of high-order edge dynamics is investigated for coopetition multiagent systems, in which the cooperative and competitive relationships among agents are characterized by positive weight and negative weight, respectively. By mapping the initial graph to a line graph, the distributed control protocol is proposed for the strongly connected, digon sign-symmetric structurally balanced line graph; and then we give sufficient conditions for the third-order multi-gent system to achieve both the bipartite consensus of edge dynamics and the final value of bipartite consensus. By transforming the coefficients of characteristic polynomial from complex domain to real number domain, the sufficient conditions for the bipartite consensus of high-order edge dynamics are also proposed, and the final values of the high-order edge dynamics on multiagent systems are obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the stabilizability and formation control problems of multi-agent systems with antagonistic interactions. The agents run a bipartite consensus protocol using a signed Laplacian which is different from the conventional one. By taking advantage of the proposed structurally balanced independent strongly connected components(SBiSCCs) of the signed graph, a sufficient and necessary condition is presented to solve the decentralized stabilizability problem of multi-agent systems with antagonistic interactions. Besides, formation control is considered and the sufficient and necessary condition is provided by applying the proposed results. Several simulations are given to illustrate the theoretical results. • SBiSCCs based necessary and sufficient conditions are derived for the rank of Laplacian. • Stabilizability condition and the decentralized control are proposed. • A necessary and sufficient condition is provided for formation control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the optimal topology structure is studied for hybrid-weighted leader-follower multiagent systems (MASs). The results are developed by taking advantage of linear quadratic regulator (LQR) theory. We show that the multiagent star composite structure is the optimal topology which can enable the MAS to achieve the bipartite consensus. In particular, we prove that the optimal topology corresponding to the multiagent system with the first-order static leader and the second-order dynamic leader is, respectively, a hybrid-weighted star composite structure and an unevenly hybrid-weighted star composite structure. The results of the paper indicate that, in addition to the necessary information communication between leader and followers, the information exchange among followers increases the control cost of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stabilizing multiagent systems including unstable agents shows the advantage of cooperation. This paper addresses the problem of stabilization of heterogeneous multiagent systems. Under cycle graphs, a sufficient condition for the stabilization problem via harmonic control is provided and an algorithm of designing the interconnection gains is presented. Furthermore, a sufficient and necessary condition for stabilization problem via harmonic control under cycle graphs is first given when the graph contains less than 5 nodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the controllability of multiagent systems based on path and cycle graphs. For paths or cycles, sufficient and necessary conditions are presented for determining the locations of leaders under which the controllability can be realized. Specifically, the controllability of a path is shown to be determined by a set generated only from its odd factors, and the controllability of a cycle is determined by whether the distance between 2 leaders belongs to a set generated from its even (odd) factors when the number of its nodes is even (odd). For both graphs, the dimension of the controllable subspace is also derived. Moreover, the technique used in the derivation of the above results is further used to get sufficient and necessary conditions for several different types of graphs generated from path and cycle topologies. These types of graphs can be regarded as typical topologies in the study of multiagent controllability, and accordingly the obtained results have meaningful enlightenment for the research in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consensus problem of first-order multi-agent systems with time delay is investigated. The periodic sample and event hybrid control method is applied. Specifically, each agent samples its own states periodically and decides when to transmit its sampled states to its neighbors based on certain event. The agents’ distributed consensus algorithms are based on these hybrid sampled and event-triggered state measurements, which can significantly decrease the number of the controllers’ updates. The Zeno behavior which is discussed in most works considering event-based consensus of multi-agent systems is excluded automatically since the span between two contiguous event-triggering time instants is not less than the sampling period. The cases of directed and undirected topologies are both considered. The obtained results improve the existing ones in the literature. A numerical simulation is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the controllability of multi-agent systems is studied under leader-follower framework, where the interconnection between agents is directed. The concept of leader-follower connectedness is first introduced for directed graph to check controllability, and some graph-theoretic conditions are derived for constructively designed topologies. Then, distance partition and almost equitable partition are employed to quantitatively study the controllable subspaces. Moreover, the relationship between the state invariance of multi-agent systems and the existence of almost equitable partition is discussed. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, graphical characterization of multiagent controllability has been studied extensively. A major effort in the study is to determine controllability directly from topology structures of communication graphs. In this paper, we proposed the concept of controllability destructive nodes, which indicates that the difficulty in graphical characterization turns out to be the identification of topology structures of controllability destructive nodes. It is shown that each kind of double and triple controllability destructive nodes happens to have a uniform topology structure which can be defined similarly. The definition, however, is verified not to be applicable to the topology structures of quadruple controllability destructive (QCD) nodes. Even so, a design method is proposed to uncover topology structures of QCD nodes for graphs with any size, and a complete graphical characterization is presented for the graphs consisting of five vertices. One advantage of the established complete graphical characterization is that the controllability of any graph with any selection of leaders can be determined directly from the identified/defined destructive topology structures. The results generate several necessary and sufficient graphical conditions for controllability. A key step of arriving at these results is the discovery of a relationship between the topology structure of the controllability destructive nodes and a corresponding eigenvector of the Laplacian matrix. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The event-based broadcasting containment control problem for both first-order and second-order multi-agent systems under directed topology is investigated. Based on certain event, each agent decides when to transmit its current states to its neighbours and the agents’ distributed control algorithms are based on these sampled state measurements, which can significantly decrease the number of the controllers’ updates. All the agents are divided into two groups, namely, the leaders and the followers. The formation control is introduced. The leaders exchange their information to converge to a formation. The followers utilise the information from both their leader neighbours and their follower neighbours and are driven to the convex hull of the leaders using the proposed control algorithms. Numerical simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As an efficient collective response of multi-agent systems, the realization of stabilizability needs appropriate information transfer among agents, thus the topology structure is paramount. To investigate the influences of network topology on stabilizability, the concept of quotient graph (equivalent transformation of original graph) is proposed to realize the stabilizability of large-scale network systems which can be reduced to a small-scale quotient graph. As a cornerstone of topology graph transformation, N S i graph division, which is proposed for the first time in this paper, plays a crucial role in stabilizability analysis and has far-reaching impact. It establishes an equivalent connection between the stabilizability of the original topology graph and the quotient graph. Results reveal a nontrivial relationship between stabilizability of uncontrollable multi-agent systems and network topology (i.e., the stabilizability of uncontrollable multi-agent systems is not only related to the selection of leaders, but also depends on uncontrollable modes.), which is established by quotient graph as a visual generalization of the original network topology. Surprisingly, structural balance is not always good, and unbalance has a positive effect on the stabilizability of the system. Finally, the simulation experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the controllability problem for both continuous- and discrete-time linear heterogeneous multi-agent systems with directed and weighted communication topology. First, two kinds of neighbour-based control protocols based on the distributed protocol of first-order and second-order multi-agent systems are proposed, under which it is shown that a heterogeneous multi-agent system is controllable if the underlying communication topology is controllable. Then, under special leader selection, the result shows that the controllability of a heterogeneous multi-agent system is solely decided by its communication topology graph. Furthermore, some necessary and/or sufficient conditions are derived for controllability of communication topology from algebraic and graphical perspectives. Finally, simulation examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the controllability of first-order and second-order discrete-time multi-agent systems with directed topology and input delay. The problem is studied in the leader–follower framework where a number of agents are selected to be leaders and serve as control inputs to all other agents. Sufficient and necessary conditions are derived for the controllability of first-order discrete-time multi-agent systems. With sampling period and feedback gain satisfying certain conditions, it is proved under three different protocols that the controllability of second-order discrete-time multi-agent systems is equivalent to that of a pair of submatrices of Laplacian matrix. In addition, the controllability of both first-order and second-order discrete-time multi-agent systems with input delay is shown, through some transformations, to be equivalent to that of the transformed non-delayed systems. Finally, some simulation examples are given to illustrate the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the stabilisability of multi-agent systems (MASs) under switching topologies. Necessary and/or sufficient conditions are presented in terms of graph topology. These conditions explicitly reveal how the intrinsic dynamics of the agents, the communication topology and the external control input affect stabilisability jointly. With the appropriate selection of some agents to which the external inputs are applied and the suitable design of neighbour-interaction rules via a switching topology, an MAS is proved to be stabilisable even if so is not for each of uncertain subsystem. In addition, a method is proposed to constructively design a switching rule for MASs with norm-bounded time-varying uncertainties. The switching rules designed via this method do not rely on uncertainties, and the switched MAS is quadratically stabilisable via decentralised external self-feedback for all uncertainties. With respect to applications of the stabilisability results, the formation control and the cooperative tracking control are addressed. Numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, the influences of negative weights on the consensus problems of multi-agent systems are investigated. While the system is subject to external attacks or agents in the system break down, there are errors in information transmission between agents. As a result, for non-negative systems, the connection weights between agents may change, or even change from positive to negative. In this paper, we provide a unified approach to deal with the problem of how to ensure the consensus of the system when the connection weight becomes negative. It is found that the consensus of multi-agent systems and general linear multi-agent systems will be guaranteed while the weights change to a certain extent without changing the protocol and feedback gains. We obtain a necessary and sufficient condition to ensure that the system can still reach asymptotic consensus when the connection weight is negative. The result is applicable to first-order, high-order integrator type of multi-agent systems as well as the general linear multi-agent system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The paper studies decentralized stabilizability for multi-agent systems with general linear dynamics. The stabilizability problem is formulated in a way that the protocol performance can be evaluated by means of the stabilizability region and the feedback gain. For fixed topology, it is proved that the system is stabilizable if and only if external control inputs are exerted on some indicated agents. The result is further shown to be a prerequisite for subsequent design of the corresponding decentralized external self-feedback control, which is also necessary and sufficient. Based on this, two methods are presented to find the agents under which stabilizability can be reached, and the region of stabilizability is given to evaluate the protocol performance. For switching interaction topology, it is shown that the system is stabilizable even if each of its subsystems is not. Finally, the results are employed to cope with the decentralized set-point formation control problem, for which some necessary and/or sufficient conditions are developed. Numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed results. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: By controllability of multi-agent systems, we mean the property that all agents can be driven to arbitrary configurations only through regulating a few leaders externally, while the rest of the agents are subject to the nearest-neighbor-law. It is known that the controllability of multi-agent systems depends not only on the communication topologies among agents but also on the selection of leaders. The main objective of this paper aims to characterize the virtue that leaders should have from the perspective of algebraic and graphical conditions. We begin with a heuristic observation for tree graph. To gain more insights, necessary and sufficient conditions are then proposed in terms of downer branch and subgraphs, respectively. In particular, it is shown for path topologies that controllability completely depends on the leaders’ location. The obtained results may help us to pave the way towards a new method of formation and reconfiguration control in swarming robots. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper, we study the strong targeted controllability of multi-agent systems with time-varying topologies over finite fields from a graph theoretic perspective. We consider leader–follower networks, where only some of the agents are governed by external control inputs, namely the leaders. We develop a graph-theoretic characterization for strong targeted controllability of multi-agent systems with time-varying topologies over finite fields. Specifically, we show that a time-varying multi-agent system is strongly targeted controllable over any finite field if the graphs of the system satisfy certain properties. Our main results are applicable to time-varying topologies with arbitrary fields and coupling weights. We also present a necessary and sufficient condition for the strong structural controllability of the time-invariant multi-agent systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]