Constrained Consensus in State-Dependent Directed Multiagent Networks

In this paper, constrained consensus of a group of continuous-time dynamical agents over state-dependent networks is investigated. The communication network, modulated by an asymmetric distance between agents, accommodates general directed information flows. Each agent proposes a comfortable range in a distributed manner, where they are inclined to agree on the final equilibrium state. Based on Lyapunov stability theory and robustness analysis, different conditions have been obtained to guarantee convergence within the common comfortable range when the network connectivity is fixed and time-varying. No global information is required in the proposed nonlinear control protocols. Furthermore, an opinion dynamics model has been introduced incorporating both social observer effect and bounded confidence phenomenon in the same state-dependent framework. Relaxed consensus conditions have been derived under certain symmetric assumptions. Finally, numerical examples have been presented to verify the effectiveness of the theoretical results.

Automated summary

This paper investigates the constrained consensus of a group of continuous-time dynamical agents over state-dependent networks. By utilizing Lyapunov stability theory and robustness analysis, convergence conditions have been obtained and nonlinear control protocols and opinion dynamics models have been proposed, further validating the theoretical results.