Sampled-data based structural controllability of multi-agent systems with switching topology

Abstract

This paper investigates the structural controllability problem for multi-agent systems with switching topology in a sampled-data setting, where each agent can obtain its neighbors’ state information at sampling instants. Based on the zero-order hold circuit, we show that the sampled-data general linear switched multi-agent system is structurally controllable if the union graph has a spanning tree. For sampled-data switched multi-agent systems, we prove that controllability property is preserved if an unsampled subsystem is controllable and the sampling time is not pathological. Our results show that the sampled-data based multi-agent systems with switching topology can be structurally controllable even if each of its subsystems is not controllable. A numerical example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed results.