Receding Horizon Control Based Consensus Scheme in General Linear Multi-agent Systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a distributed receding horizon control approach for achieving consensus in general linear multi-agent systems, providing explicit protocols and necessary conditions for consensus with theoretical validation.

Contribution

It presents a novel distributed RHC strategy for consensus, deriving explicit protocols and conditions, including for systems with linear dynamics, supported by case studies.

Findings

Explicit consensus protocols derived from RHC

Necessary and sufficient conditions for consensus established

Case studies verify theoretical results

Abstract

This paper investigates the consensus problem of general linear multi-agent systems under the framework of optimization. A novel distributed receding horizon control (RHC) strategy for consensus is proposed. We show that the consensus protocol generated by the unconstrained distributed RHC can be expressed in an explicit form. Based on the resulting consensus protocol the necessary and sufficient conditions for ensuring consensus are developed. Furthermore, we specify more detailed consensus conditions for multi-agent system with general and one-dimensional linear dynamics depending on the difference Riccati equations (DREs), respectively. Finally, two case studies verify the proposed scheme and the corresponding theoretical results.