Partial component consensus of leader-following multi-agent systems

Abstract

Consensus problems, as basic topics in distributed coordination of multi-agent systems, have drawn a great deal of attention from different research fields. Generally, consensus refers to the asymptotic convergence of state variables of all agents with time evolution. In this paper, a concept on partial component consensus in multi-agent system is first given, which is a weaker dynamic behavior of group than the consensus in general, and then the problem of partial component consensus in leader-following first-order multi-agent system with the directed network topology is discussed. By designing an appropriate pinning control protocol and building corresponding error system, partial component consensus in multi-agent system is transformed into the partial variable stability of the error system. Using matrix theory and stability theory, a sufficient condition is given to realize partial component consensus in multi-agent system. Numerical simulations are given to illustrate the theoretical results.