Title: Controllability analysis of multi-agent systems using relaxed equitable partitions

Authors: Simone Martini, Magnus Egerstedt, Antonio Bicchi

Addresses: Interdepartmental Research Center, ''E. Piaggio'', University of Pisa, Pisa 56126, Italy; School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA. ' School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA. ' Interdepartmental Research Center, ''E. Piaggio'', University of Pisa, Pisa 56126, Italy

Abstract: This paper investigates how to make decentralised networks, amenable to external control, i.e., how to ensure that they are appropriately organised so that they can be effectively |reprogrammed|. In particular, we study networked systems whose interaction dynamics are given by a nearest-neighbour averaging rule, with one leader node providing the control input to the entire system. The main result is a necessary and sufficient condition for the controllability of such systems in terms of the graph topology. In particular, we give a graph theoretic interpretation of the controllability properties through the so-called relaxed equitable partition.

Keywords: networked control systems; network analysis; network control; communication networks; multi-agent systems; relaxed equitable partitions; MAS; agent-based systems; decentralised networks; decentralised control; controllability; graph topology; graph theory.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSCC.2010.031160

International Journal of Systems, Control and Communications, 2010 Vol.2 No.1/2/3, pp.100 - 121

Published online: 23 Jan 2010 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article