Mean square average-consensus under measurement noises and fixed topologies: Necessary and sufficient conditions

In this paper, average-consensus control is considered for networks of continuous-time integrator agents under fixed and directed topologies. The control input of each agent can only use its local state and the states of its neighbors corrupted by white noises. To attenuate the measurement noises, time-varying consensus gains are introduced in the consensus protocol. By combining the tools of algebraic graph theory and stochastic analysis, the convergence of these kinds of protocols is analyzed. Firstly, for noise-free cases, necessary and sufficient conditions are given on the network topology and consensus gains to achieve average-consensus. Secondly, for the cases with measurement noises, necessary and sufficient conditions are given on the consensus gains to achieve asymptotic unbiased mean square average-consensus. It is shown that under the protocol designed, all agents’ states converge to a common Gaussian random variable, whose mathematical expectation is just the average of the initial states.     

Distributed consensus of discrete‐time multi‐agent systems with multiplicative noises

In this paper, we consider the consensus problem of discrete‐time multi‐agent systems with multiplicative communication noises. Each agent can only receive information corrupted by noises from its neighbors and/or a reference node. The intensities of these noises are dependent on the relative states of agents. Under some mild assumptions of the noises and the structure of network, consensus is analyzed under a fixed topology, dynamically switching topologies and randomly switching topologies, respectively. By combining algebraic graph theory and martingale convergence theorem, sufficient conditions for mean square and almost sure consensus are given. Further, when the consensus is achieved without a reference, it is shown that the consensus point is a random variable with its expectation being the average of the initial states of the agents and its variance being bounded. If the multi‐agent system has access to the state of the reference, the state of each agent can asymptotically converge to the reference. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of our results. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stochastic bounded consensus tracking of second-order multi-agent systems with measurement noises based on sampled-data with general sampling delay

This paper investigates the stochastic bounded consensus tracking problems of second-order multi-agent systems, where the control input of an agent can only use the information measured at the sampling instants from its neighbours or the virtual leader with a time-varying reference state, the measurements are corrupted by random noises and the signal sampling process induces the general sampling delay. First, the stochastic bounded consensus tracking protocol based on sampled-data with the general sampling delay is presented by using the delay decomposition technique. Second, the augmented matrix method, the probability limit theory and some other techniques are employed to derive the necessary and sufficient conditions guaranteeing the mean square bounded consensus tracking. The theoretical results show that the convergence of the proposed protocol simultaneously depends on the constant feedback gains, the network topology, the sampled period and the sampling delay, and that the static consensus tracking error depends on not only the above-mentioned factors, but also the noise intensity and the upper bound of the velocity and the acceleration of the virtual leader. The obtained results cover no sampling delay and the small sampling delay as two special cases. Simulations are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.     

Allowable sampling period for consensus control of multiple general linear dynamical agents in random networks

This article studies the consensus problem for a group of sampled-data general linear dynamical agents over random communication networks. Dynamic output feedback protocols are applied to solve the consensus problem. When the sampling period is sufficiently small, it is shown that as long as the mean topology has globally reachable nodes, the mean square consensus can be achieved by selecting protocol parameters so that n???1 specified subsystems are simultaneously stabilised. However, when the sampling period is comparatively large, it is revealed that differing from low-order integrator multi-agent systems the consensus problem may be unsolvable. By using the hybrid dynamical system theory, an allowable upper bound of sampling period is further proposed. Two approaches to designing protocols are also provided. Simulations are given to illustrate the validity of the proposed approaches.     

Event-triggered nonlinear consensus in directed multi-agent systems with combinational state measurements

Event-triggered sampling control is motivated by the applications of embedded microprocessors equipped in the agents with limited computation and storage resources. This paper studied global consensus in multi-agent systems with inherent nonlinear dynamics on general directed networks using decentralised event-triggered strategy. For each agent, the controller updates are event-based and only triggered at its own event times by only utilising the locally current sampling data. A high-performance sampling event that only needs local neighbours’ states at their own discrete time instants is presented. Furthermore, we introduce two kinds of general algebraic connectivity for strongly connected networks and strongly connected components of the directed network containing a spanning tree so as to describe the system's ability for reaching consensus. A detailed theoretical analysis on consensus is performed and two criteria are derived by virtue of algebraic graph theory, matrix theory and Lyapunov control approach. It is shown that the Zeno behaviour of triggering time sequence is excluded during the system's whole working process. A numerical simulation is given to show the effectiveness of the theoretical results.     

Leader-following consensus for single-integrator multi-agent systems with multiplicative noises in directed topologies

This paper proposes a leader-following consensus control for continuous-time single-integrator multi-agent systems with multiplicative measurement noises under directed fixed and switching topologies. The consensus controller is developed by combining the graph theory and stochastic tools. The control input for each agent relies on its own state and its neighbours’ states corrupted by noises, the noises are considered proportional to the relative distance between agents, both of the noisy case and the noise-free case are studied, and conditions to achieve mean square convergence under noisy measurement and asymptotic convergence in absence of noises are derived. Finally, in order to prove the validity of the consensus control, some simulations were carried out.     

Consensus of second-order multi-agent systems in the presence of locally bounded faults

We propose an algorithm for consensus of second-order sampled-data multi-agent systems in the presence of misbehaving agents. Each normal agent updates its states following a predetermined control law based on local information while some malicious agents make updates arbitrarily. The normal agents do not know the global topology of the network, but have prior knowledge on the maximum number of malicious agents in their neighborhood. Under the assumption that the network has sufficient connectivity in terms of robustness, we develop a resilient algorithm where each agent ignores the neighbors which have large and small position values to avoid being influenced by malicious agents.     

A novel gain design method to improve the consensus performance of output-feedback multi-agent systems

This paper considers the consensus problem of a group of homogeneous agents. These agents are governed by a general linear system and can only directly measure the output, instead of the state. In order to achieve the consensus goal, each agent estimates its state through a Luenberger observer, exchanges its estimated state with neighbors, and constructs the control input with the estimated states of its own and neighbors. Due to the existence of observation and process noises, only practical consensus, instead of asymptotical consensus, can be achieved in such multi-agent systems. The performance of the achieved practical consensus can be measured by the ultimate mean square deviation of the states of agents. That performance is closely related to the observation gains of the state observers and the control gains of agents. This paper proposes a method to optimize such performance with respect to the concerned observation and control gains. That method starts with a set of feasible observation and control gains and formulates a group of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Solving these LMIs gives some intermediate matrix variables. By perturbing observation and control gains, and the intermediate matrix variables, the original LMIs yield another group of LMIs, which can be solved to provide a descent direction of observation and control gains. Moving along that descent direction, observation and control gains can be improved to yield better performance and work as the starting point of the next iteration. By iteratively repeating this procedure, we can hopefully improve the consensus performance of the concerned multi-agent system. Simulations are done to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Solving a modified consensus problem of linear multi-agent systems

A distributed protocol is proposed for a modified consensus problem of a network of agents that have the same continuous-time linear dynamics. Each agent estimates its own state using its output information and then sends the estimated state to its neighbor agents for the purpose of reaching a consensus. The modified consensus problem requires the group decision value to be a linear function of initial states and initial estimated states of all agents in the network, and the transformation matrix associated with this linear function not to be a zero matrix. It is proved that under the proposed control protocol, the modified consensus problem can be solved if and only if the system matrices of the agent’s dynamics are stabilizable and detectable, the input matrix is not a zero matrix, and the communication topology graph has a spanning tree. The proposed protocol can also be extended to multi-agent systems where agents are described by discrete-time linear dynamics. The corresponding necessary and sufficient conditions are provided as well.     

Finite-time median-related group consensus over directed networks

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we investigate a novel finite-time median-related group consensus problem, where the finial consensus value can be identified as a desired function of the median of initial states instead of the much studied average value. The underlying communication topology is modelled by a weighted dynamical directed network. A distributed control protocol is firstly introduced to ensure that the agents can reach a median-related consensus in finite time in a collaboration network, meaning that all edge-weights of the communication network are non-negative. We then generalise the results to cooperation–competition networks, where the communication network is divided into predetermined collaboration subnetworks allowing possibly negative weights. Effective group control protocols are designed to guarantee the median-related group consensus in finite time. Finally, numerical simulations are presented to illustrate the availability of our theoretical results.     

On finite-time and fixed-time consensus algorithms for dynamic networks switching among disconnected digraphs

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to analyse the stability of a class of consensus algorithms with finite-time or fixed-time convergence for dynamic networks composed of agents with first-order dynamics. In particular, in the analysed class a single evaluation of a nonlinear function of the consensus error is performed per each node. The classical assumption of switching among connected graphs is dropped here, allowing to represent failures and intermittency in the communications between agents. Thus, conditions to guarantee finite and fixed-time convergence, even while switching among disconnected graphs, are provided. Moreover, the algorithms of the considered class are computationally simpler than previously proposed finite-time consensus algorithms for dynamic networks, which is an essential feature in scenarios with computationally limited nodes and energy efficiency requirements such as in sensor networks. Simulations illustrate the performance of the proposed consensus algorithms. In the presented scenarios, results show that the settling time of the considered algorithms grows slower than other consensus algorithms for dynamic networks as the number of nodes increases.     

Non-fragile sampled-data control of network systems subject to time-delay

This paper studies the consensus problem of non-linear network systems subject to time-delay through aperiodic sampled-data control, which is more desirable and flexible than periodic sampling control. By receiving the relative information of the neighboring nodes, each node can obtain control input signals at the discrete sampling instants. A new stability criterion is established for network systems via using a time-dependent Lyapunov functional and the free-weighting matrix method. The maximum upper bound of sampling interval can be achieved by solving Linear matrix inequality optimization problem. Under the basic work of a non-fragile sampled-data controller, network systems with time-delay are asymptotically stable. In the end, two numerical simulation examples can be provided to illustrate the validity of the application of the proposed algorithm.     

Pinning weighted complex networks with heterogeneous delays by a small number of feedback controllers

Weighted complex dynamical networks with heterogeneous delays in both continuous-time and discrete-time domains are controlled by applying local feedback injections to a small fraction of network nodes. Some generic stability criteria ensuring delay-independent stability are derived for such controlled networks in terms of linear matrix inequalities （LMIs）, which guarantee that by placing a small number of feedback controllers on some nodes the whole network can be pinned to some desired homogenous states. In some particular cases, a single controller can achieve the control objective. It is found that stabilization of such pinned networks is completely determined by the dynamics of the individual uncoupled node, the overall coupling strength, the inner-coupling matrix, and the smallest eigenvalue of the coupling and control matrix. Numerical simulations of a weighted network composing of a 3-dimensional nonlinear system are finally given for illustration and verification.     

Active exploration for large graphs

Modern information networks, such as social networks, communication networks, and citation networks, are often characterized by very large sizes and dynamically changing structures. Common solutions to graph mining tasks (e.g., node classification) usually employ an unrestricted sampling-then-mining paradigm to reduce a large network to a manageable size, followed by subsequent mining tasks. However, real-world networks may be unaccessible at once and must be crawled progressively. This can be due to the fact that the size of the network is too large, or some privacy/legal concerns. In this paper, we propose an Active Exploration framework for large graphs, where the goal is to simultaneously carry out network sampling and node labeling in order to build a sampled network from which the trained classifier can have the maximum node classification accuracy. To achieve this goal, we consider a network as a Markov chain and compute the stationary distribution of the nodes by deriving supervised random walks. The stationary distribution helps identify specific nodes to be sampled in the next step, and the labeling process labels the most informative node which in turn strengthens the sampling of the network. To improve the scalability of active exploration for large graphs, we also propose a more efficient multi-seed algorithm that simultaneously runs multiple, parallel exploration processes, and makes joint decisions to determine which nodes are to be sampled and labeled next. The simultaneous, mutually enhanced sampling and labeling processes ensure that the final sampled network contains a maximum number of nodes directly related to the underlying mining tasks. Experiments on both synthetic and real-world networks demonstrate that our active exploration algorithms have much better chance to include target nodes in the sampled networks than baseline methods.     

Stability analysis and controller design for consensus in discrete-time networks with heterogeneous agent dynamics

In this paper, we study the heterogeneous consensus problem in directed networks consisting of first- and second-order agents that can only receive the position states of their neighbors. Necessary and sufficient conditions on the controller parameters are obtained in order to achieve consensus in the network. The mathematical expressions of the consensus equilibria are given for two different scenarios. Furthermore, we propose a systematic method for choosing controller parameters to ensure stability in a network of agents with heterogeneous dynamics. Several numerical examples are also provided to illustrate the theoretical results.     

Consensus analysis for leader‐following multi‐agent systems with second‐order individual dynamics and arbitrary sampling

This paper performs a consensus analysis of leader‐following multi‐agent systems with multiple double integrators in the framework of sampled‐data control. Both single‐leader and multiple‐leader scenarios are considered under the assumption of networks with detectable position‐like state information. The coordination tasks are accomplished by a given protocol with the robustness against the change of sampling periods. The sampling periods can be chosen to be of an arbitrary fixed length or large time‐varying length. Under the proposed protocol, we achieve two objectives: (i) in the single leader‐subgroup case, all followers reach an agreement with leaders on states asymptotically and (ii) in the multiple leader‐subgroup case, each follower converges to some convex combination of the final states of all leaders. It is shown that the final state configuration of the convex combination is uniquely determined by the underlying interaction topology, which can be any weakly connected graph. Compared with the existing results on leader‐following networks, the consensus problem and the containment problem are solved in a unified framework with large sampling periods. Some numerical experiments are conducted to illustrate the dynamic behavior of all agents with this protocol. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mean-square filter design for stochastic polynomial systems with Gaussian and Poisson noises

This paper addresses the mean-square finite-dimensional filtering problem for polynomial system states with both, Gaussian and Poisson, white noises over linear observations. A constructive procedure is established to design the mean-square filtering equations for system states described by polynomial equations of an arbitrary finite degree. An explicit closed form of the designed filter is obtained in case of a third-order polynomial system. The theoretical result is complemented with an illustrative example verifying performance of the designed filter.     

基于超级节点的分布式传感器节点定位算法

针对无线传感器网络中数目庞大的传感器节点难以进行有效定位的问题,提出一种分布式的传感器节点迭代定位算法.基于整个网络中相互重叠的子图,该算法的每一步迭代涉及两个步骤:一是每个子图内的高效定位,二是相邻子图之间的局部一致.对于每个子图,采用共轭梯度法对节点进行局部定位;之后,对相邻子图重叠区域内节点的局部位置进行融合平均.这两个步骤持续进行,直至满足迭代终止条件.仿真实验表明,与现有分布式算法相比,所提出算法的定位误差降低了一个数量级,能够对大规模的无线传感器网络进行高效定位.     

Consensus of multiple double‐integrator agents with intermittent measurement

This paper is concerned with consensus problems in directed networks of multiple agents with double‐integrator dynamics. It is assumed that each agent adjusts its state based on the information of its states relative to its neighbors at discrete times and the interaction topology among agents is time‐varying. Both synchronous and asynchronous cases are considered. The synchrony means that each agent's update times, at which it obtains new control signals, are the same as the others', and the asynchrony implies that each agent's update times are independent of the others'. In the synchronous case, the consensus problem is proved to be equivalent to the asymptotic stability problem of a discrete‐time switched system. By analyzing the asymptotic stability of the discrete‐time switched system, it is shown that consensus can be reached if the update time intervals are small sufficiently, and an allowable upper bound of update time intervals is obtained. In the asynchronous case, the consensus problem is transformed into the global asymptotic stability problem of a continuous‐time switched system with time‐varying delays. In virtue of a linear matrix inequality method, it is proved that consensus can be reached if the delays are small enough, and an admissible upper bound of delays is derived. Simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Estimation of a Population Size in Large-Scale Wireless Sensor Networks

Efficient estimation of population size is a common requirement for many wireless sensor network applications. Examples include counting the number of nodes alive in the network and measuring the scale and shape of physically correlated events. These tasks must be accomplished at extremely low overhead due to the severe resource limitation of sensor nodes, which poses a challenge for large-scale sensor networks. In this article we design a novel measurement technique, FLAKE based on sparse sampling that is generic, in that it is applicable to arbitrary wireless sensor networks (WSN). It can be used to efficiently evaluate system size, scale of event, and other global aggregating or summation information of individual nodes over the whole network in low communication cost. This functionality is useful in many applications, but hard to achieve when each node has only a limited, local knowledge of the network. Therefore, FLAKE is composed of two main components to solve this problem. One is the Injected Random Data Dissemination (Sampling) method, the other is sparse sampling algorithm based on Inverse Sampling, upon which it improves by achieving a target variance with small error and low communication cost. FLAKE uses approximately uniform random data dissemination and sparse sampling in sensor networks, which is an unstructured and localized method. At last we provide experimental results demonstrating the effectiveness of our algorithm on both small-scale and large-scale WSNs. Our measurement technique appears to be the practical and appropriate choice.