State synchronization of linear and nonlinear agents in time‐varying networks

This paper studies state synchronization of homogeneous time‐varying networks with diffusive full‐state coupling or partial‐state coupling. In the case of full‐state coupling, linear agents as well as a class of nonlinear time‐varying agents are considered. In the case of partial‐state coupling, we only consider linear agents, but, in contrast with the literature, we do not require the agents in the network to be minimum phase or at most weakly unstable. In both cases, the network is time‐varying in the sense that the network graph switches within an infinite set of graphs with arbitrarily small dwell time. A purely decentralized linear static protocol is designed for agents in the network with full‐state coupling. For partial‐state coupling, a linear dynamic protocol is designed for agents in the network while using additional communication among controller variables using the same network. In both cases, the design is based on a high‐gain methodology. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.