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We uncover a new relation between Closeness centrality and the Condorcet principle. We define a Condorcet winner in a graph as a node that compared to any other node is closer to more nodes. In other words, if we assume that nodes vote on a closer candidate, a Condorcet winner would win a two-candidate election against any other node in a plurality vote. We show that Closeness centrality and its random-walk version, Random-Walk Closeness centrality, are the only classic centrality measures that are Condorcet consistent on trees, i.e., if a Condorcet winner exists, they rank it first. While they are not Condorcet consistent in general graphs, we show that Closeness centrality satisfies the Condorcet Comparison property that states that out of two adjacent nodes, the one preferred by more nodes has higher centrality. We show that Closeness centrality is the only regular distance-based centrality with such a property.

This article considers the robust consensus problem of the general linear multiagent system (MAS) subject to both heterogeneous additive stable disturbances and input saturation. Distributed low gain feedback-based dynamic output feedback control protocols are proposed, which do not need the controller interaction. Algebraic Riccati equation and unified $H_{∞}$ controller design method are employed to design the output feedback control protocols. It is established that under the assumption that each agent is asymptotically null controllable with bounded controls, semiglobal robust consensus can always be reached under the proposed controller. Furthermore, the design method specialized for leader-following consensus is addressed, under the assumption that the Laplacian matrix is diagonalizable, one can design the control protocol only with the number of follower agents. Finally, several simulations are provided to show the effectiveness of our results.

This article proposes a hybrid systems approach to address the sampled-data leaderless and leader-following bipartite consensus problems of multiagent systems (MAS) with communication delays. First, distributed asynchronous sampled-data bipartite consensus protocols are proposed based on estimators. Then, by introducing appropriate intermediate variables and internal auxiliary variables, a unified hybrid model, consisting of flow dynamics and jump dynamics, is constructed to describe the closed-loop dynamics of both leaderless and leader-following MAS. Based on this model, the leaderless and leader-following bipartite consensus is equivalent to stability of a hybrid system, and Lyapunov-based stability results are then developed under hybrid systems framework. With the proposed method, explicit upper bounds of sampling periods and communication delays can be calculated. Finally, simulation examples are given to show the effectiveness.

The consensus problem is relevant to different areas ranging from biology, social psychology, and physics to power systems and robotics. Two crucial aspects of the design of a consensus system are the implementation issues that arise in densely connected networks and the presence of malicious agents that try to cause a deviation from a synchronization state. In this article, we introduce a formulation to design the topology of a consensus network to improve its resilience to attacks while remaining sparse and consistent with the a priori structural relations between the agents. Through mathematical analysis and simulations on artificial and real-world cases, we show the benefits and usefulness of using this strategy to design resilient and structurally sparse consensus networks.

This article addresses the leader-following consensus problem of feedforward stochastic nonlinear multiagent systems with switching topologies. Output information for all agents, except for state information, can be acquired based on sensor measurement. Moreover, the stochastic disturbances from external unpredictable environments are considered on all agent systems with a feedforward structure. In these conditions, we propose a novel consensus scheme with a simple design procedure. First, for each follower, we construct a dynamic gain-based switched compensator using its output and its neighbor agents' outputs to provide feedback control signals. Then, for each follower, we develop a compensator-based distributed controller that is not directly associated with the topology switching signal such that it has a first derivative and antishake. Thereafter, by means of the Lyapunov stability theory, we verify that the leader-following consensus can be acquired asymptotically in probability under the controllers' action if the topology switching signal fulfills an average dwell time condition. Finally, the feasibility of the control algorithm is checked via numerical simulation.

We propose a new distributed optimization algorithm for solving a class of constrained optimization problems in which (a) the objective function is separable (i.e., the sum of local objective functions of agents), (b) the optimization variables of distributed agents, which are subject to nontrivial local constraints, are coupled by global constraints, and (c) only noisy observations are available to estimate (the gradients of) local objective functions. In many practical scenarios, agents may not be willing to share their optimization variables with others. For this reason, we propose a distributed algorithm that does not require the agents to share their optimization variables with each other; instead, each agent maintains a local estimate of the global constraint functions and share the estimate only with its neighbors. These local estimates of constraint functions are updated using a consensus-type algorithm, while the local optimization variables of each agent are updated using a first-order method based on noisy estimates of gradient. We prove that, when the agents adopt the proposed algorithm, their optimization variables converge with probability 1 to an optimal point of an approximated problem based on the penalty method., 8 pages

We tackle the problem of a set of agents achieving resilient consensus in the presence of attacked agents. We present a discrete-time reputation-based consensus algorithm for synchronous and asynchronous networks by developing a local strategy where, at each time, each agent assigns a reputation (between zero and one) to each neighbor. The reputation is then used to weigh the neighbors' values in the update of its state. Under mild assumptions, we show that: (i) the proposed method converges exponentially to the consensus of the regular agents; (ii) if a regular agent identifies a neighbor as an attacked node, then it is indeed an attacked node; (iii) if the consensus value of the normal nodes differs from that of any of the attacked nodes' values, then the reputation that a regular agent assigns to the attacked neighbors goes to zero. Further, we extend our method to achieve resilience in the scenarios where there are noisy nodes, dynamic networks and stochastic node selection. Finally, we illustrate our algorithm with several examples, and we delineate some attacking scenarios that can be dealt by the current proposal but not by the state-of-the-art approaches.

We consider a multi-agent optimal resource sharing problem that is represented by a linear program. The amount of resource to be shared is fixed, and agents belong to a population that is characterized probabilistically so as to allow heterogeneity among the agents. In this paper, we provide a characterization of the probability that the arrival of a new agent affects the resource share of other agents, which means that accommodating the new agent request at the detriment of the other agents allocation provides some payoff. This probability represents a sensitivity index for the optimal solution of a linear programming resource sharing problem when a new agent shows up, and it is of fundamental importance for a correct and profitable operation of the multi-agent system. Our developments build on the equivalence between the resource sharing problem and certain dual reformulations which can be interpreted as scenario programs with the number of scenarios corresponding to the number of agents in the primal problem. The recent "wait-and-judge" scenario approach is then used to obtain the sought sensitivity index. Our theoretical findings are demonstrated through a numerical example on optimal cargo aircraft loading., Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures

We consider a discrete system of $n$ simple indistinguishable devices, called \emph{agents}, forming a \emph{connected} shape $S_I$ on a two-dimensional square grid. Agents are equipped with a linear-strength mechanism, called a \emph{line move}, by which an agent can push a whole line of consecutive agents in one of the four directions in a single time-step. We study the problem of transforming an initial shape $S_I$ into a given target shape $S_F$ via a finite sequence of line moves in a distributed model, where each agent can observe the states of nearby agents in a Moore neighbourhood. Our main contribution is the first distributed connectivity-preserving transformation that exploits line moves within a total of $O(n \log_2 n)$ moves, which is asymptotically equivalent to that of the best-known centralised transformations. The algorithm solves the \emph{line formation problem} that allows agents to form a final straight line $S_L$, starting from any shape $ S_I $, whose \emph{associated graph} contains a Hamiltonian path., Comment: 31 pages, 18 figures

We propose decentralized primal-dual methods for cooperative multi-agent consensus optimization problems over both static and time-varying communication networks, where only local communications are allowed. The objective is to minimize the sum of agent-specific convex functions over conic constraint sets defined by agent-specific nonlinear functions; hence, the optimal consensus decision should lie in the intersection of these private sets. Under the strong convexity assumption, we provide convergence rates for sub-optimality, infeasibility, and consensus violation in terms of the number of communications required; examine the effect of underlying network topology on the convergence rates., A preliminary result of this paper was presented in arXiv:1706.07907 by Hamedani and Aybat. In this paper, we generalize our results to the setting where agent-specific constraints are defined by nonlinear functions rather than linear ones which greatly improves the modeling capability. This generalization requires a more complicated analysis which is studied in this separate arXiv submission

This article investigates the dynamic consensus problem for the discrete-time second-order integrator networked multiagent system with time-varying delay and switching topology, in which the speed of each agent is not required to be synchronized to zero value. Novel consensus protocols using only relative state information are proposed, and sufficient conditions for dynamic consensus are derived. The results show that consensus can be reached for both the case with delay and the case without delay, if the gain is sufficiently small and the union of interaction graphs is scrambling or contains a spanning tree frequently enough as the system evolves. Numerical examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.

This article aims at addressing the transient bipartite synchronization problem for cooperative-antagonistic multiagent systems with switching topologies. A distributed iterative learning control protocol is presented for agents by resorting to the local information from their neighbor agents. Through learning from other agents, the control input of each agent is updated iteratively such that the transient bipartite synchronization can be achieved over the targeted finite horizon under the simultaneously structurally balanced signed digraph. To be specific, all agents finally have the same output moduli at each time instant over the desired finite-time interval, which overcomes the influences caused by the antagonisms among agents and topology nonrepetitiveness along the iteration axis. As a counterpart, it is revealed that the stability can be achieved over the targeted finite horizon in the presence of a constantly structurally unbalanced signed digraph. Simulation examples are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the distributed learning results developed among multiple agents.

Wireless network is the communication foundation that supports the intelligentization of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) swarm. The topology of UAV communication network is the key to understanding and analyzing the behavior of UAV swarm, thus supporting the further prediction of UAV operations. However, the UAV swarm network topology varies over time due to the high mobility and diversified mission requirements of UAVs. Therefore, it is important but challenging to research dynamic topology inference for tracking the topology changes of the UAV network, especially in non-cooperative manner. In this paper, we study the problem of inferring UAV swarm network topology based on external observations, and propose a dynamic topology inference method. First, we establish a sensing framework for acquiring the communication behavior of the target network over time. Then, we expand the multi-dimensional dynamic Hawkes process to model the communication event sequence in a dynamic wireless network. Finally, combining the sliding time window mechanism, the maximum weighted likelihood estimation is applied to inferring the network topology. Extensive simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

In this article, a distributed adaptive model-free control algorithm is proposed for consensus and formation-tracking problems in a network of agents with completely unknown nonlinear dynamic systems. The specification of the communication graph in the network is incorporated in the adaptive laws for estimation of the unknown linear and nonlinear terms, and in the online updating of the elements in the main controller gain matrix. The decentralized control signal at each agent in the network requires information about the states of the leader agent, as well as the desired formation variables of the agents in a local coordinate frame. These two sets of variables are provided at each agent by utilizing two recently proposed distributed observers. It is shown that only a spanning-tree rooted at the leader agent is enough for the convergence and stability of the proposed cooperative control and observer algorithms. Two simulation studies are provided to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm in comparison with two state-of-the-art distributed model-free control algorithms. With lower control effort as well as fewer offline gain tuning, the same level of consensus errors is achieved. Finally, the application of the proposed solution is studied in the formation-tracking control of a team of autonomous aerial mobile robots via simulation results.

This paper designs formation–containment control algorithms for a class of second-order nonlinear multi-agent systems governed by Euler–Lagrange dynamics with communication delays. The formation–containment problem consists of leader agents’ formation control and follower agents’ containment control. Firstly, to make the leaders form a desired formation and move collectively with a constant velocity, a coordinated formation control algorithm is designed and the variable-gain technique is used to eliminate the effect of communication delays on the leaders’ formation control. Secondly, considering that only the leaders have access to the desired moving velocity, we propose distributed velocity estimators for followers in which the communication delays also exist in the followers’ information interaction. By using the estimated velocity information, coordinated containment control laws are designed for the followers to drive them asymptotically converge to the convex hull spanned by all leaders. Furthermore, to increase the system robustness against uncertainties and external disturbances, the adaptive updating laws are designed for all agents. Finally, simulations are given to demonstrate these obtained results.

Considering that there are many systems with limited network bandwidth in practice, this article studies the leader-following consensus problem for a class of nonlinear multiagent systems (MASs). The purpose of this article is to reduce unnecessary information transmission between any pair of adjacent agents including the leader in the MASs through intermittent communication. The novel event-triggered and asynchronous edge-event triggered mechanisms are designed for the leader and all edges, respectively. The static and dynamic consensus protocols under these mechanisms are proposed to address the leader-following consensus problem for MASs with Lipschitz dynamics, and the systems will not exhibit Zeno behavior under these two control schemes. Note that the dynamic consensus protocol does not rely on any global values of MASs, it is a fully distributed way. Finally, a practice simulation example is introduced to illustrate the theoretical results obtained.

In this paper, a data-driven distributed leader-follower iterative learning consensus tracking control approach is proposed for unknown repetitive nonlinear non-affine discrete-time multi-agent systems. The leader's command is only communicated to a subset of the following agents and each following agent exchanges information only with its neighbors under a directed graph. A local iterative learning consensus control protocol is designed using only local measurements communicated among neighboring agents without the availability of physical and structural information of each agent by virtue of the dynamic linearization method both on the agent and the ideal distributed learning controller along the iteration axis. The convergent consensus properties of the tracking errors along the iteration axis are rigorously established under the strongly connected iteration-independent and iteration-varying communication topologies. One example is provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed iterative learning consensus control protocol.

This article proposes a dynamic gain approach for investigating the leader-follower consensus problem of nonlinear multiagent systems with both distributed delays and discrete delays. It is assumed that each agent is in the strict-feedback form and satisfies the Lipschitz condition with an unknown constant. A novel dynamic gain observer is first constructed for each follower by only utilizing the output information of the follower and its neighbors. By introducing an observer, a distributed output-feedback control protocol is designed for each follower agent under a directed communication topology. It is proved by the Lyapunov-Razumikhin theorem that the consensus of the multiagent system is achieved with the proposed consensus protocol. Different from the existing results, the dynamic gain is constructed for each follower to propose the consensus protocol, without resorting to the celebrated backstepping technique. Moreover, the time-varying gain is designed in a uniform framework. The effectiveness of the proposed approaches is illustrated by a simulation example.

In this paper, we study the problems of bipartite and cooperative consensus with a strictly dissipative performance for fuzzy multi-agent systems (MASs) in a unified framework. First, we prove that bipartite consensus over a structurally balanced signed graph is equivalent to cooperative consensus over the corresponding unsigned graph by leveraging the gauge transformation for a class of nonlinear MASs. Then, a polynomial fuzzy model is constructed to describe the nonlinear MAS formed by one leader and followers. For mitigating communication and computational load, a mode-dependent eventtriggered transmission strategy is proposed. By establishing the switching topologies through Markovian process, a new sampleddata event-triggered consensus protocol is designed.With a modedependent Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, a novel relaxed dissipative criterion is obtained. The criterion guarantees that all agents can achieve both event-triggered cooperative consensus and event-triggered bipartite consensus with the same magnitude but opposite signs for MASs over structurally balanced signed directed graphs and Markovian switching topologies. Moreover, the event-triggered parameters and consensus control gains can be numerically solved via the sum of squares (SOS) method. Simulation results are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed design method.

The existing studies for tracking consensus of multiagent systems (MASs) are all restricted to networks with only cooperative relationships among agents. Tracking consensus, however, requires beyond these traditional models due to the ubiquitous competition in many real-world MASs, such as biological systems and social systems. Taking into account this fact, this article aims to extend the dynamics of tracking consensus to signed networks containing both cooperative and competitive relationships among agents. A group of agents with general linear dynamics is considered. The cases of the fixed network as well as switching networks are analyzed, respectively. In the end, some algebraic conditions related to the network structure and the positive/negative edge weight are established to ensure the implementation of tracking consensus. Moreover, the single decoupling system is allowed to be strictly unstable in theory, and the upper bound of the eigenvalue modulus of the system matrix related to the system instability is given.

In this article, the adaptive finite-time consensus problem is discussed for uncertain nonlinear multiagent systems. In contrast with the correlative literature, the systems permit multiple uncertainties (not only in control coefficients but also in inherent nonlinearities), and typically the consensus protocol is pursued in a fully distributed fashion (independent from any global information of network topology). This essentially challenges the realization of the finite-time consensus. To overcome the challenge, a new continuous fully distributed protocol is proposed by combining adaptive techniques such that the finite-time consensus of the systems under investigation is achieved. Remarkably, a dynamic high gain, rather than multiple ones in the related literature, is adequate to resist two kinds of uncertainties and to guarantee the fully distributed fashion of the consensus protocol. Moreover, the adaptive finite-time consensus protocol is specified on the scenario of leader-following multiagent systems. Simulation results of three interaction topologies are acquired to illustrate the validity and the wider applicability of the proposed protocol.

We introduce and analyze a model for the dynamics of flocking and steering of a finite number of agents. In this model, each agent's acceleration consists of flocking and steering components. The flocking component is a generalization of many of the existing models and allows for the incorporation of many real world features such as acceleration bounds, partial masking effects and orientation bias. The steering component is also integral to capture real world phenomena. We provide rigorous sufficient conditions under which the agents flock and steer together. We also provide a formal singular perturbation study of the situation where flocking happens much faster than steering. We end our work by providing some numerical simulations to illustrate our theoretical results., Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures

The objective of this Special Issue is to showcase a unified vision for the applications of AI in radio propagation for communications and other relevant aspects. More specifically, the initial announcement encouraged emphasis in, but not limited to, the following areas: novel AI or AI-enabled techniques for radio propagation characterization and analysis; AI-enabled data analysis and parameter extractions of wireless channels; clustering analysis for radio channel characterization and modeling; AI-enabled channel modeling and communication system simulation; AI algorithm design in radio propagation for the applications in communications.

This paper investigates the consensus problem for a class of multi-agent systems with P-one-sided Lipschitz nonlinearity. This nonlinearity offers a significant extension to application range of existing consensus control protocol design methods, which removes the assumption of the quadratic inner-boundedness. To solve this problem, a strongly connected graph topology is applied within the consensus protocol design framework. Moreover, the leader-following scenario is addressed under the graph topology. Under the above objectives, sufficient conditions are employed to yield consensus. Two examples are performed to illustrate the properties.

A multi-agent coverage problem is considered with energy-constrained agents, where a charging station is used to replenish an agent's energy as it becomes depleted while performing the coverage task. The objective of this paper is to compare the coverage performance between centralized and decentralized approaches. To this end, a centralized coverage control method is developed to switch agents between an optimal coverage formation and an optimal charging formation. We design a controller for agent trajectories that include dwell times at the optimal coverage locations and charging times at the charging station to maximize a coverage metric over a finite time interval. Our controller guarantees that at any time there is at most one agent leaving the team for energy repletion. We also derive a tight bound which allows us to quantify the gap between the coverage proposed strategy and the unknown globally optimal coverage performance.

In this article, we study the problem of affine formation stabilization for multiagent systems in the plane. The challenges lie in the limited access to the information of the target formation in the sense that the prescribed values of the formation parameters, that is, the scaling size and rotation angle, are known only by one agent which we call the leader. Motivated by the fact that three agents (say, leaders) can determine the shape of a planar triangular formation using the stress matrix, we propose a class of estimators to guarantee that two agents in the leader set can gain access to the formation parameters. Then, an integrated control scheme is designed such that the target formation can be uniquely stabilized among all its affine transformations. The sufficient condition ensuring the stability of the closed-loop system is also given based on the cyclic-small-gain theorem. Simulations and experiments are carried out to show the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.

This article investigates a class of finite-time cooperative tracking problems of heterogeneous mixed-order multiagent systems (MASs) with higher-order dynamics. Different from the previous works of heterogeneous MASs, the agents in this study are considered to have different first-, second-, or even higher-order nonlinear dynamics. It means that, according to different tasks and situations, the following agents can have nonidentical orders or different numbers of states to be synchronized, which is more general for the practical cooperative applications. The leader is a higher-order nonautonomous system and contains full state information to be synchronized for all agents with mixed-order dynamics. Accordingly, the spanning tree is defined based on the specific state rather than on the agent to guarantee that each following agent can receive adequate state information. Distributed control protocols are designed for all agents to achieve the ultimate state synchronization to the leader in finite time. The Lyapunov approach is used for the stability analysis and a practical example of mixed-order mechanical MASs verifies the effectiveness and performance of the proposed distributed control protocols.

This paper considers the leader-following bipartite consensus for a class of nonlinear multi-agent systems (MASs) subject to exogenous disturbances under directed fixed and switching topologies, respectively. Firstly, two new output feedback control protocols involving signs of link weights are introduced based on relative output measurements of neighboring agents. In order to estimate the disturbances produced by an exogenous system, a disturbance observer-based approach is developed. Then, sufficient conditions for leader-following bipartite consensus with directed fixed topologies are derived. Furthermore, by assuming that each switching topology contains a directed spanning tree, it is proved that the leader-following bipartite consensus can be realized with the designed output feedback control protocol if the dwell time is larger than a non-negative threshold. Finally, numerical simulations inspired by a real-world DC motors are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed controllers.

Motivated by the challenges arising in the field of multi-agent systems (MAS) control, we consider linear heterogenous MAS subject to local communication and investigate the problem of designing distributed controllers for such systems. We provide a game theoretic framework for systematically designing distributed controllers, taking into account individual objectives of the agents and their possibly incomplete knowledge of the MAS. Linear state-feedback control laws are obtained via the introduction of a distributed differential game, namely the combination of local non-cooperative differential games, which are solved in a decentralised fashion. Conditions for stability of the MAS are provided for the special cases of acyclic and strongly connected communication graph topologies. These results are then exploited to provide stability conditions for general graph topologies. The proposed framework is demonstrated on a tracking synchronisation problem associated with the design of a distributed secondary voltage controller for microgrids and on a numerical example.

Given a boolean predicate $\Pi$ on labeled networks (e.g., proper coloring, leader election, etc.), a self-stabilizing algorithm for $\Pi$ is a distributed algorithm that can start from any initial configuration of the network (i.e., every node has an arbitrary value assigned to each of its variables), and eventually converge to a configuration satisfying $\Pi$. It is known that leader election does not have a deterministic self-stabilizing algorithm using a constant-size register at each node, i.e., for some networks, some of their nodes must have registers whose sizes grow with the size $n$ of the networks. On the other hand, it is also known that leader election can be solved by a deterministic self-stabilizing algorithm using registers of $O(\log \log n)$ bits per node in any $n$-node bounded-degree network. We show that this latter space complexity is optimal. Specifically, we prove that every deterministic self-stabilizing algorithm solving leader election must use $\Omega(\log \log n)$-bit per node registers in some $n$-node networks. In addition, we show that our lower bounds go beyond leader election, and apply to all problems that cannot be solved by anonymous algorithms., Comment: Final journal version for DMTCS (Conference version at OPODIS 2021)

In this paper, we consider cooperative multi-agent systems, where independent agents need to minimize a collective social cost. Given the coupling in the cost, the optimal strategy requires interaction and communications among all the agents in general. In this paper, we unveil important classes of social costs which are optimized by decentralized and selfish solutions, hence eliminating the need for an inter-agent communication network. In particular, we focus on a set of n independent agents coupled only through an overall cost that penalizes the divergence of each agent from the average collective behavior. Adopting input-output methods, we show that optimal decentralized and selfish solutions are possible in a variety of standard input-output cost criteria. These include the cases of l_1, l_2, l_infty induced, and H2 norms for any finite n. Moreover, if the cost includes nondeviation from average variables, the above results hold true as well for l_1, l_2, l_infty induced norms and any n, while they hold true for the normalized, per-agent square H2 norm, cost as n ! 1. The results of the paper demonstrate that selfish behavior can be socially optimal in nontr

This article is dedicated to solving the coordination problem using a reset algorithm that consists of linear impulsive dynamics, over which antagonistic reciprocity among interacting individuals is inevitable. It shows that reciprocal agents are convergent (including consensus and clusters) whenever the scaling parameters of an agent, corresponded to continuous/discrete dynamics, enjoy the same proportion value that matches to all agents. Otherwise, all participating agents share nothing eventually, that is, they achieve stability. This immediately gives rise to that the final aggregated values of agents are entirely determined by the underlying parameters, on condition that the connection property of communication topologies is preserved. Therefore, the proposed setup features a unified perspective on consensus, clusters (including bipartite consensus), and stability that are separately studied in most of the existing literature. The developed method is well supported via numerical examples.

Suppose that in a given planar circular region, there are some smart mobile evaders and we would like to find them using sweeping agents. We assume that each agent has a line sensor of length 2r. We propose procedures for designing cooperative sweeping processes that ensure the successful completion of the task, thereby deriving conditions on the sweeping velocity of the agents and their paths. Successful completion of the task means that evaders with a given limit on their velocity cannot escape the sweeping agents. A simpler task for the sweeping swarm is the confinement of the evaders to their initial domain. The feasibility of completing these tasks depends on geometric and dynamic constraints that impose a lower bound on the velocity that the sweeper swarm must have. This critical velocity is derived to ensure the satisfaction of the confinement task. Increasing the velocity above the lower bound enables the agents to complete the search task as well. We present results on the total search time as a function of the sweeping velocity of the swarm's agents given the initial conditions on the size of the search region and the maximal velocity of the evaders., arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1905.04006

Motivated by data on coauthorships in scientific publications, we analyze a team formation process that generalizes matching models and network formation models, allowing for overlapping teams of heterogeneous size. We apply different notions of stability: myopic team-wise stability, which extends to our setup the concept of pair-wise stability, coalitional stability, where agents are perfectly rational and able to coordinate, and stochastic stability, where agents are myopic and errors occur with vanishing probability. We find that, in many cases, coalitional stability in no way refines myopic team-wise stability, while stochastically stable states are feasible states that maximize the overall number of activities performed by teams., 44 pages

A consensus control scheme is developed for a class of leader-follower multiagent systems with a fuzzy dead zone constraint. Differently from previous work, the method developed implements a predefined convergence of tracking errors for multiagent systems; especially, the dynamic model for each follower has a fuzzy dead zone input. To solve the problem, not only a set of smooth functions are used within the control design to increase the stability of the systems but also the unfuzziness and center-of-gravity method are used to analyze and process the actuator constraint model, where each slope of the dead zone is uncertain and fuzzy. It is verified that the method developed effectively guarantees that the tracking errors of multiagent systems can converge to a predefined interval; that is, the problem of better asymptotic consensus performance for nonlinear multiagent systems is solved. Simulation illustrates the results obtained.

This article mainly considers the containment control problem of multi-agent systems (MASs), where the time-varying communication delays are taken into consideration and the multiple leaders are stationary or dynamic. Specially, when leaders are stationary, the communication delays among agents are nonuniform, which is rarely considered in existing papers. Furthermore, when leaders are dynamic, we derive the sufficient conditions for the case with uniform time-varying communication delays. In both cases, all followers are included into the convex hull spanned by leaders with proposed control protocol, in which we get the sufficient conditions by using Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional. At last, the effectiveness is verified by simulations.

In this paper, a novel distributed leader-following consensus controller for linear multi-agent systems (MASs) with one leader and N followers is designed for optimal leader-following consensus control. A user-friendly global objective function is well designed in a quadratic form. The proper choice of the weighting matrices and necessary and sufficient conditions for optimizing the objective function are given. The proposed controller can guarantee the optimization of the objective function and the achievement of the leader-following consensus of the MASs. To deal with the coupling in the controllers, we propose a dynamic average consensus-based algorithm to estimate the controller distributedly, and the estimate errors converge to zero in finite time. A simulation example is provided to demonstrate the results.

This article investigates the leader-following output consensus problem of heterogeneous linear multiagent systems, where the nonidentical followers are subject to norm bounded parameter uncertainties. Two novel distributed event-triggered consensus strategies based on state feedback and output feedback, respectively, are proposed to solve the leader-following output consensus problem. A dynamic event-triggering mechanism which involves internal state variables is proposed to determine the next triggering instant. It should be noted that the controllers can be designed without the knowledge of some global graph information, such as the eigenvalues of the Laplacian matrix associated with the corresponding communication graph and the number of agents. In addition, the interevent time can be prolonged and the Zeno behavior can be excluded with the proposed dynamic triggering mechanism. Finally, an example is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed controllers.

In this paper we describe application of the method of physical processes simulating to build a swarm of drones. We show that this method provides the construction of a swarm of drones in the form of a crystal lattice with specified parameters. We found those additional conditions that make it possible to assemble a swarm of disparate drones. We have proposed an algorithm that allows assembling a swarm with minimal costs using a simple measuring complex. Key words UAV, self-organization, physical processes simulating, crystal lattice, swarm robotics, sensors for UAV.

This study proposes a collision-free motion planning framework for indoor autonomous flight of multirotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based on the convex model predictive control (MPC) approach u...

We study a general class of dynamic multi-agent decision problems with asymmetric information and non-strategic agents, which includes dynamic teams as a special case. When agents are non-strategic, an agent's strategy is known to the other agents. Nevertheless, the agents strategy choices and beliefs are interdependent over times, a phenomenon known as signaling. We introduce the notion of sufficient information that effectively compresses the agents information in a mutually consistent manner. Accordingly, we propose an information state for each agent that is sufficient for decision making purposes. We present instances where we can determine an information state with a time-invariant domain for each agent. We present a generalization of the policy-independence property of belief in Partially Observed Markov Decision Processes to dynamic multi-agent decision problems. Furthermore, we propose a sequential decomposition that decouples the interdependence between the agents strategies and beliefs over time, and enables us to formulate a dynamic program to determine a globally optimal policy in dynamic teams via backward induction.

This article establishes an approach, based on distributed optimization, for solving continuous-time Lyapunov equations (CTLE) over multiagent networks. Each agent in the network knows partial information of the CTLE and has a dynamical system to estimate exact or least-squares solutions. The aim of agents is to find a solution to CTLE by sharing information with connected agents over a network. This article develops distributed algorithms with an exponential rate of convergence for CTLE via the convex optimization design. Finally, this article presents numerical simulations to show the efficacy of the main results.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be used as aerial relays to provide quick and on-demand wireless connections for the area without network coverage. Since a UAV’s onboard energy is limited, how to prolong the duration of UAV relaying communication is challenging. In this paper, we consider applying multiple UAVs to extend the duration of communication via UAV collaboration. We first propose a UAV collaboration scheme, namely heuristic UAV substitution, which lets the UAV relays work one by one individually. Then, we propose another scheme called spectral efficient UAV substitution to improve the spectrum efficiency. Furthermore, under these two proposed schemes, we jointly design the trajectories of the UAV relays and the transmit power of the source and the UAV relays, with the goal of end-to-end throughput maximization. Although the considered optimization problem is non-convex and difficult to solve, we propose an efficient algorithm to find a suboptimal solution to it by applying the block coordinate ascent and successive convex approximation methods. Simulation results show that the proposed UAV substitution schemes can effectively extend the relaying communication duration, and the throughput performance of the proposed joint trajectory optimization and transmit power control algorithm outperforms some benchmark algorithms without considering joint design.

A matching in a bipartite graph with parts X and Y is called envy-free if no unmatched vertex in X is a adjacent to a matched vertex in Y. Every perfect matching is envy-free, but envy-free matchings exist even when perfect matchings do not. We prove that every bipartite graph has a unique partition such that all envy-free matchings are contained in one of the partition sets. Using this structural theorem, we provide a polynomial-time algorithm for finding an envy-free matching of maximum cardinality. For edge-weighted bipartite graphs, we provide a polynomial-time algorithm for finding a maximum-cardinality envy-free matching of minimum total weight. We show how envy-free matchings can be used in various fair division problems with either continuous resources ("cakes") or discrete ones. In particular, we propose a symmetric algorithm for proportional cake-cutting, an algorithm for 1-out-of-(2n-2) maximin-share allocation of discrete goods, and an algorithm for 1-out-of-floor(2n/3) maximin-share allocation of discrete bads among n agents., Comment: Appeared in Information Sciences, 587:164--187. But during the production, the main theorem text was deleted. The arXiv version is the correct one

Consensusability of multi-agent systems (MASs) certifies the existence of a distributed controller capable of driving the states of each subsystem to a consensus value. We study the consensusability of linear interconnected MASs (LIMASs) where, as in several real-world applications, subsystems are physically coupled. We show that consensusability is related to the simultaneous stabilizability of multiple LTI systems, and present a novel sufficient condition in form of a linear program for verifying this property. We also derive several necessary and sufficient consensusability conditions for LIMASs in terms of parameters of the subsystem matrices and the eigenvalues of the physical and communication graph Laplacians. The results show that weak physical couplings among subsystems and densely-connected physical and communication graphs are favorable for consensusability. Finally, we validate our results through simulations of networks of supercapacitors and DC microgrids.

An oligopoly with an arbitrary number of Stackelberg leaders under incomplete, asymmetrical agents' awareness and inadequacy of their predictions of competitors' actions is considered. Models of individual decision-making processes by agents are studied. The reflexive games theory and collective behavior theory are the theoretical basis for construction and analytical study process models. They complement each other in that reflexive games allow using the collective behavior procedures and the results of agents' reflections, leading to a Nash equilibrium. The dynamic decision-making process considered repeated static games on a range of agents' feasible responses to the expected actions of the environment, considering current economic restrictions and competitiveness in each game. Each reflexive agent in each game calculates its current goal position and changes its state, taking steps towards the current position of the goal to obtain positive profit or minimize losses. Sufficient conditions for the convergence of processes in discrete time for the case of linear costs of agents and linear demand is the main result of this work. New analytical expressions for the agents' current steps' ranges guarantee the convergence of the collective behavior models to static Nash equilibrium is obtained. That allows each agent to maximize their profit, assuming common knowledge among the agents. The processes when the agent chooses their best response are also analyzed. The latter may not give converging trajectories. The case of the duopoly in comparison with modern results is discussed in detail. Necessary mathematical lemmas, statements, and their proofs are presented.

Spacecraft swarms can achieve mission objectives otherwise impossible by monolithic satellites. To this end, swarms need to autonomously reconfigure their relative motion while complying with space...

This brief investigates the consensus for networked delayed multi-agent systems with switching topologies and time-varying communication delays. Novel consensus protocol that uses (pseudo) predictive scheme is proposed to synchronize the states of agents. Sufficient consensus conditions are derived, and the results show that the state consensus can be guaranteed if the graphs contain a joint spanning tree as frequently as the system evolves and no eigenvalues of system matrix exist outside the unit circle. Numerical examples illustrate the theoretic results.

This paper presents a novel neuro-adaptive augmented distributed nonlinear dynamic inversion (N-DNDI) controller for consensus of nonlinear multi-agent systems in the presence of unknown external disturbance. N-DNDI is a blending of neural network and distributed nonlinear dynamic inversion (DNDI), a new consensus control technique that inherits the features of Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion (NDI) and is capable of handling the unknown external disturbance. The implementation of NDI based consensus control along with neural networks is unique in the context of multi-agent consensus. The mathematical details provided in this paper show the solid theoretical base, and simulation results prove the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC): EP/R009953/1.

We propose a method of controlling the formation in a multiagent system using partial differential equations (PDEs). In this method, the behavior of the entire multiagent system is modeled by second-order or higher order PDEs. We also propose a boundary controller that exponentially stabilizes the PDE model. By discretizing the PDE model under the proposed controller, the follower agents' control laws can be derived. Moreover, the boundary controller corresponds to the leader agents' control laws. The use of higher order PDEs leads to the generation of various formations that cannot be generated by using lower order PDEs. Finally, we conduct numerical simulations and experiments to validate the proposed method.