Identifying the Most Influential Driver Nodes for Pinning Control of Multi-Agent Systems with Time-Varying Topology

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel methodology to identify the most influential driver nodes for rapid synchronization in multi-agent systems with time-varying topologies, ensuring optimal control performance.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach to find the best driver nodes that guarantee fastest synchronization, independent of system matrix under certain conditions.

Findings

Method successfully identifies influential nodes in simulations.

Determines switching frequency thresholds for stable driver node selection.

Shows independence of driver node selection from system matrix under specific conditions.

Abstract

Identifying the most influential driver nodes to guarantee the fastest synchronization speed is a key topic in pinning control of multi-agent systems. This paper develops a methodology to find the most influential pinning nodes under time-varying topologies. First, we provide the pinning control synchronization conditions of multi-agent systems. Second, a method is proposed to identify the best driver nodes that can guarantee the fastest synchronization speed under periodically switched systems. We show that the determination of the best driver nodes is independent of the system matrix under certain conditions. Finally, we develop a method to estimate the switching frequency threshold that can make the selected best driver nodes remain the same as the average system. Numerical simulations reveal the feasibility of these methods.