Multi-agent flocking under general communication rule

Samuel Martin (1) , Antoine Girard (1) , Arastoo Fazeli (2) , Ali Jadbabaie (2)

1 CASYS - Calculs Algébriques et Systèmes Dynamiques
2 University of Pennsylvania

In this paper, we consider a multiagent system consisting of mobile agents with second-order dynamics. The communication network is determined by a general interaction rule based on the distance between agents. The goal of this paper is to determine practical conditions ensuring that the agents asymptotically agree on a common velocity, i.e., a flocking behavior is achieved. Unlike previous studies on the topic, our results simultaneously satisfy the three following features: 1) our conditions apply to a model, which does not require long distance communication; 2) they only depend on the initial positions and velocities of the agents; and 3) most importantly, our results allow for the disconnection of communication links which are not necessary for flocking. To circumvent the difficulty arising from the state dependent dynamics, a suitable bounding process is used. We apply our result to two cases, where communication takes place either within deterministic or stochastic distance radiuses. Our result is illustrated through simulations.

Domaines: Optimisation et contrôle [math.OC]

Samuel Martin, Antoine Girard, Arastoo Fazeli, Ali Jadbabaie. Multi-agent flocking under general communication rule. IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems, 2014, 1 (2), pp.155-166. ⟨10.1109/TCNS.2014.2316994⟩. ⟨hal-01133202⟩