Robust Consensus for Multi-Agent Systems Communicating over Stochastic Uncertain Networks

In this paper, we study the robust consensus problem for a set of discrete-time linear agents to coordinate over an uncertain communication network, which is to achieve consensus against the transmission errors and noises resulted from the information exchange between the agents. We model the network by means of communication links subject to multiplicative stochastic uncertainties, which are susceptible to describing packet dropout, random delay, and fading phenomena. Different communication topologies, such as undirected graphs and leader-follower graphs, are considered. We derive sufficient conditions for robust consensus in the mean square sense. This results unveil intrinsic constraints on consensus attainment imposed by the network synchronizability, the unstable agent dynamics, and the channel uncertainty variances. Consensus protocols are designed based on the state information transmitted over the uncertain channels, by solving a modified algebraic Riccati equation.Comment: 9 pages and 3 figures. Submitted to Automatic

Mean sqaure synchronization in large scale nonlinear networks with uncertain links

In this paper, we study the problem of synchronization with stochastic interaction among network components. The network components dynamics is nonlinear and modeled in Lure form with linear stochastic interaction among network components. To study this problem we first prove the stochastic version of Positive Real Lemma (PRL). The stochastic PRL result is then used to provide sufficient condition for synchronization of stochastic network system. The sufficiency condition for synchronization, is a function of nominal (mean) coupling Laplacian eigenvalues and the statistics of link uncertainty in the form of coefficient of dispersion (CoD). Contrary to the existing literature on network synchronization, our results indicate that both the largest and the second smallest eigenvalue of the mean Laplacian play an important role in synchronization of stochastic networks. Robust control-based small-gain interpretation is provided for the derived sufficiency condition which allow us to define the margin of synchronization. The margin of synchronization is used to understand the important tradeoff between the component dynamics, network topology, and uncertainty characteristics. For a special class of network system connected over torus topology we provide an analytical expression for the tradeoff between the number of neighbors and the dimension of the torus. Similarly, by exploiting the identical nature of component dynamics computationally efficient sufficient condition independent of network size is provided for general class of network system. Simulation results for network of coupled oscillators with stochastic link uncertainty are presented to verify the developed theoretical framework

Performance of Single and Double-Integrator Networks over Directed Graphs

This paper provides a framework to evaluate the performance of single and double integrator networks over arbitrary directed graphs. Adopting vehicular network terminology, we consider quadratic performance metrics defined by the L2-norm of position and velocity based response functions given impulsive inputs to each vehicle. We exploit the spectral properties of weighted graph Laplacians and output performance matrices to derive a novel method of computing the closed-form solutions for this general class of performance metrics, which include H2-norm based quantities as special cases. We then explore the effect of the interplay between network properties (e.g. edge directionality and connectivity) and the control strategy on the overall network performance. More precisely, for systems whose interconnection is described by graphs with normal Laplacian L, we characterize the role of directionality by comparing their performance with that of their undirected counterparts, represented by the Hermitian part of L. We show that, for single-integrator networks, directed and undirected graphs perform identically. However, for double-integrator networks, graph directionality -- expressed by the eigenvalues of L with nonzero imaginary part -- can significantly degrade performance. Interestingly in many cases, well-designed feedback can also exploit directionality to mitigate degradation or even improve the performance to exceed that of the undirected case. Finally we focus on a system coherence metric -- aggregate deviation from the state average -- to investigate the relationship between performance and degree of connectivity, leading to somewhat surprising findings. For example increasing the number of neighbors on a \omega-nearest neighbor directed graph does not necessarily improve performance. Similarly, we demonstrate equivalence in performance between all-to-one and all-to-all communication graphs.Comment: Index Terms: L2, H2 norm, directed graph, performanc