This monograph represents the outcome of research effort of the authors on scalable synchronization of large-scale multi-agent systems (MAS). Cooperative control of multi-agent systems has been growing in popularity and is highly interdisciplinary in recent years. The application of synchronization of MAS includes automobile systems, aerospace systems, multiple-satellite GPS, high-resolution satellite imagery, aircraft formations, highway traffic platooning, industrial process control with multiple processes, and more. Most of the proposed protocols in the literature for synchronization of MAS require some knowledge of the communication network such as bounds on the spectrum of the associated Laplacian matrix and the number of agents. These protocols suffer from scale fragility wherein stability properties are lost for large-scale networks or when the communication graph changes.

In the past few years, the authors of this monograph have worked on developing scale-free protocol design for various cases of MAS problems. The key contribution of the monograph is to offer a scale-free design framework and provide scale-free protocols to achieve synchronization, delayed synchronization, and almost synchronization in the presence of input and communication delays, input saturation and external disturbances. The scale-free design framework solely is based on the knowledge of agent models and does not depend on information about the communication network such as the spectrum of the associated Laplacian matrix or size of the network.

Drawing upon their extensive work in this area, the authors provide a thorough treatment of agents with higher-order dynamics, different classes of models for agents, and the underlying networks representing actions of the agents. The high technical level of their presentation and their rigorous mathematical approach make this monograph a timely and valuable resource that will fill a gap in theexisting literature.

Provides current research of Multi-Agent Systems Presents a scale-free Protocol Design Gives an overview over recent research on Cooperative Control of Multi-Agent Systems

Autorentext

Zhanshan Wang received B.S. degree in Electrical Automation from Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology, Baotou, China in 1994, M.S. degree in Control Theory and Control Engineering from Liaoning Shihua University, Fushun in 2001 and Ph.D. degree in Control Theory and Control Engineering from Northeastern University, Shenyang in 2006, respectively. From 1994 to 1998 he was a technician in Fushun Plant, Liaoning. He is currently a Professor with the College of Information Science and Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang, China. His current research interests include stability analysis of dynamical system, neural networks, complex networks, multi-agent systems, computational intelligence, fault diagnosis, adaptive control and their applications.

Inhalt
Introduction.- Notations and Preliminaries.- Synchronization of Continuous-Time MAS.- Synchronization of Discrete-Time MAS.- Regulated State Synchronization of Homogeneous MAS in the Presence of Input Delays.- State Synchronization of Homogeneous Continuous-Time MAS in the Presence of Nonuniform Communication Delays.- State Synchronization of Homogeneous Discrete-Time MAS in the Presence of Nonuniform Communication Delays.- Regulated Output Synchronization of Heterogeneous MAS in the Presence of Nonuniform Communication Delays.- Delayed Regulated Synchronization of Continuous-Time MAS in the Presence of Unknown, Non-uniform, and Arbitrarily Large Communication Delays.- Delayed Regulated Synchronization of Discrete-time MAS in the Presence of Unknown, Non-uniform, and Arbitrarily Large Communication Delays. <p