Dynamic Consensus and Formation: Fixed and Switching Topologies

Abstract This paper addresses the dynamic consensus and formation problems of multi-agent systems for both leader-less and leader-follower cases under fixed and switched topologies. Necessary and/or sufficient conditions are presented in terms of graph topology, detectability, stabilizability, rank condition and Lyapunov inequality constraints. These conditions explicitly reveal how the intrinsic dynamics of the agents and the communication topology affect consensusability and formationability. In addition, several constructive procedures for protocol design are proposed to achieve consensus and formation. In particular, the so-called separation principle is established, which simplifies the design procedure greatly.