Phase Balancing of Two and Three-Agent Heterogeneous Gain Systems With Extensions to Multiple Agents

TL;DR

This paper investigates how heterogeneous controller gains influence phase balancing in two and three-agent systems, enabling control over velocity directions and centroid positions, with extensions to multiple agents and simulation validation.

Contribution

It generalizes existing phase balancing results by incorporating heterogeneous gains, allowing control over velocity directions and centroid locations in multi-agent systems.

Findings

Heterogeneous gains enable control of velocity directions in balanced formations.

The reachable set of velocity directions is expanded by heterogeneity.

The steady-state centroid position varies with gain heterogeneity.

Abstract

This paper studies the phase balancing of a two and three-agent system where the agents are coupled through heterogeneous controller gains. Balancing refers to the situation in which the movement of agents causes the position of their centroid to become stationary. We generalize existing results and show that by using heterogeneous controller gains, the velocity directions of the agents in balanced formation can be controlled. The effect of heterogeneous gains on the reachable set of these velocity directions is further analyzed. For the two-agents case, the locus of steady-state location of the centroid is also analyzed against the variations in the heterogeneous controller gains. Simulations are given to illustrate the theoretical findings.