Title: Stable flocking for multi-agent systems in a noisy environment: switching topology case

Authors: Zonggang Li, Yingmin Jia

Addresses: The Seventh Research Division, Beihang University (BUAA), Beijing 100083, China. ' The Seventh Research Division, Beihang University (BUAA), Beijing 100083, China

Abstract: This paper considers the flocking of a class of swarm with switching topology in a noisy environment. A new fully distributed protocol is designed for each agent to update its state by only employing its neighbours| information. Then, under the assumptions that the gradient of the environment is bounded and the interaction digraphs are jointly connected, a sufficient condition is given to guarantee the swarm system forming and maintaining flocking. In particular, for the special case with constant noise, a sufficient condition is also presented for the swarm to achieve flocking; meanwhile, it is shown that the consensus of velocities of all agents is reached. The included numerical examples illustrate the obtained results.

Keywords: multi-agent systems; MAS; agent-based systems; swarm; flocking; switching topology; noise rejection; ultimately bounded analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMIC.2011.039700

International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control, 2011 Vol.12 No.3, pp.210 - 222

Published online: 21 Mar 2015 *

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