The Most Exigent Eigenvalue: Guaranteeing Consensus under an Unknown Communication Topology and Time Delays

TL;DR

This paper investigates the maximum delay margin for consensus in multi-agent systems with unknown communication topologies, using the concept of most exigent eigenvalue to establish universal stability conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of the most exigent eigenvalue concept to determine delay margins that guarantee consensus regardless of the communication topology.

Findings

Delay margin depends on protocol and topology structure

A boundary guarantees consensus for any connected topology

Switching topologies stability conditions vary between protocols

Abstract

In the analysis of consensus problems for multi-agent systems affected by time delays, the delay margin for a given protocol is heavily dependent on the communication topology being used. This document aims to answer the question of what is the largest delay value under which convergence to consensus is still possible even if the communication topology is not known. To answer this question we revisit the concept of most exigent eigenvalue, applying it to two different consensus protocols for agents driven by second order dynamics. We show how the delay margin depends on the structure of the consensus protocol and the communication topology, and arrive to a boundary that guarantees consensus for any connected communication topology. The switching topologies case is also studied and It is shown that for one protocol the stability of the individual topologies is sufficient to guarantee consensus in the switching case, whereas for the other one it is not.