Collective Behavior of Multi-Agent Systems under Digital Communication Network

This paper works on the collective behavior of multi-agent systems under digital networks. It is assumed that the agents are distributed on a plane and communicate through a digital network. The location coordinates of each agent are measured by some remote sensor and transmitted digitally to its neighbors. The topology of communication network is described by an undirected graph and control protocol is designed by a linear decentralized law. In our setting the whole dynamics of the multi-agent system is described by a hybrid system. We explore the relationship between the collective behavior of agents and the properties of agent and network. It is shown that the agents under digital communication network may display different collective behaviors: aggregation, divergence, and periodic oscillation, under different conditions. Examples show the effectiveness of our theoretical results.