Controllability improvement for multi-agent systems: leader selection and weight adjustment

Abstract

ABSTRACTFor an uncontrollable system, adding leaders and adjusting edge weights are two methods to improve controllability. In this paper, the controllability of multi-agent systems under directed topologies is studied, especially on the leader selection problem and the weight adjustment problem. For a multi-agent system, necessary and sufficient algebraic conditions for controllability with fewest leaders are proposed. To improve controllability by adjusting edge weights, the system is supposed to be structurally controllable, which holds if and only if the communication topology contains a spanning tree. It is also proved that the number of the fewest edges needed to be assigned on new weights equals the rank deficiency of controllability matrix. In addition, a leader selection algorithm and a weight adjustment algorithm are presented. Simulation examples are provided to illustrate the theoretical results.