H2 Optimal Coordination of Homogeneous Agents Subject to Limited Information Exchange

TL;DR

This paper extends the optimal H2 control framework for multi-agent systems with diagonal-plus-low-rank controllers to scenarios with limited information exchange, providing scalable solutions and analytical insights.

Contribution

It demonstrates that optimal control solutions remain scalable under information exchange constraints and offers analytical tools to evaluate the value of information sharing.

Findings

Optimal controllers are independent of the number of agents.

Analytical expressions quantify the benefit of information exchange.

The control design remains scalable with limited information exchange.

Abstract

Controllers with a diagonal-plus-low-rank structure constitute a scalable class of controllers for multi-agent systems. Previous research has shown that diagonal-plus-low-rank control laws appear as the optimal solution to a class of multi-agent H2 coordination problems, which arise in the control of wind farms. In this paper we show that this result extends to the case where the information exchange between agents is subject to limitations. We also show that the computational effort required to obtain the optimal controller is independent of the number of agents and provide analytical expressions that quantify the usefulness of information exchange.