Nonlinear consensus protocols with applications to quantized systems

TL;DR

This paper investigates nonlinear consensus protocols in multi-agent systems, establishing stability conditions for systems with nonlinear measurements, including applications to quantized consensus on directed and undirected graphs.

Contribution

It introduces a stability analysis framework for nonlinear consensus protocols with monotonic increasing functions, extending results to directed graphs and quantized systems.

Findings

Asymptotic stability is achieved under monotonic nonlinear functions.

Results extend quantized consensus stability to directed graphs.

Applicable to systems with discontinuous nonlinear controllers.

Abstract

This paper studies multi-agent systems with nonlinear consensus protocols, i.e., only nonlinear measurements of the states are available to agents. The solutions of these systems are understood in Filippov sense since the possible discontinuity of the nonlinear controllers. Under the condition that the nonlinear functions are monotonic increasing without any continuous constraints, asymptotic stability is derived for systems defines on both directed and undirected graphs. The results can be applied to quantized consensus which extend some existing results from undirected graphs to directed ones.