Jingying Ma

In this work we present a strategic network formation model predicting the emergence of multigroup structures. Individuals decide to form or remove links based on the benefits and costs those connections carry; we focus on bilateral consent for link formation. An exogenous system specifies the frequency of coordination issues arising among the groups. We are interested in structures that arise to resolve coordination issues and, specifically, structures in which groups are linked through bridging, redundant, and co-membership interconnections. We characterize the conditions under which certain structures are stable and study their efficiency as well as the convergence of formation dynamics.

Summary: This paper considers a consensus problem for hybrid multiagent systems, which comprise two groups of agents: a group of continuous‐time dynamic agents and a group of discrete‐time dynamic agents. Firstly, a game‐theoretic approach is adopted to model the interactions between the two groups of agents. To achieve consensus for the considered hybrid multiagent systems, the cost functions are designed. Moreover, it is shown that the designed game admits a unique Nash equilibrium. Secondly, sufficient/necessary conditions of solving consensus are established. Thirdly, we find that the convergence speed of the system depends on the game. By the mechanism design of the game, the convergence speed is increased. Finally, simulation examples are given to validate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.

This paper deals with the consensus problem in network of agents with cooperative and antagonistic interactions subject to quantization. By employing the techniques from nonsmooth analysis, we prove that all agents can be guaranteed to asymptotically reach bipartite consensus for any logarithmic quantizer accuracy under connected and structurally balanced topology and the states of all agents asymptotically converge to zero under connected and structurally unbalanced topology. In addition, finite-time bipartite consensus is considered for single-integrator agents with binary quantized information. The simulation results are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.

In this paper, we consider the consensus problem of hybrid multi-agent system. First, the hybrid multi-agent system is proposed which is composed of continuous-time and discrete-time dynamic agents. Then, three kinds of consensus protocols are presented for hybrid multi-agent system. The analysis tool developed in this paper is based on the matrix theory and graph theory. With different restrictions of the sampling period, some necessary and sufficient conditions are established for solving the consensus of hybrid multi-agent system. The consensus states are also obtained under different protocols. Finally, simulation examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of our theoretical results.

It is typical to assume that there is no conflict of interest among leaders. Under such assumption, it is known that, for a multi-agent system with two leaders, if the followers' interaction subgraph is undirected and connected, then followers will converge to a convex combination of two leaders' states with linear consensus protocol. In this paper, we introduce the conflict between leaders: by choosing k followers to connect with, every leader attempts all followers converge to himself closer than that of the other. By using graph theory and matrix theory, we formulate this conflict as a standard two-player zero-sum game and give some properties about it. It is noteworthy that the interaction graph here is generated from the conflict between leaders. Interestingly, we find that to find the optimal topology of the system is equivalent to solve a Nash equilibrium. Especially for the case of choosing one connected follower, the necessary and sufficient condition for an interaction graph to be the optimal one is given. Moreover, if followers' interaction graph is a circulant graph or a graph with a center node, then the system's optimal topology is obtained. Simulation examples are provided to validate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.