@article{0f97187241d349908cf0ea9f9f5dd1a3,
title = "A new look at distributed optimal output agreement of multi-agent systems",
abstract = "This paper studies the distributed optimal output agreement problem for multi-agent systems with the agents admitting the essential reference-tracking capability characterized by the well-known notion of system types. In the present system setup, the agents know only the gradient values of their corresponding local objective functions, and distributed optimizers are designed to generate reference signals for the agents. Under mild assumptions on the local objective functions and the connectivity between the agents, it is shown that the agents{\textquoteright} outputs can be steered to the global optimum of the total objective function as long as the system type of each agent is not less than one. A numerical example on the simultaneous formation and source seeking of a group of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicles is employed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.",
keywords = "Distributed control, Multi-agent systems, Optimal output agreement, System types",
author = "Tengfei Liu and Zhengyan Qin and Jiang, {Zhong Ping}",
note = "Funding Information: Zhong-Ping Jiang received the M.Sc. degree in statistics from the University of Paris XI, France, in 1989, and the Ph.D. degree in automatic control and mathematics from the Ecole des Mines de Paris (now, called ParisTech-Mines), France, in 1993, under the direction of Prof. Laurent Praly. Currently, he is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Tandon School of Engineering, New York University. His main research interests include stability theory, robust/adaptive/distributed nonlinear control, robust adaptive dynamic programming, reinforcement learning and their applications to information, mechanical and biological systems. In these fields, he has written six books and is author/co-author of over 500 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers. Prof. Jiang is a recipient of the prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship Award from the Australian Research Council, CAREER Award from the U.S. National Science Foundation, JSPS Invitation Fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Distinguished Overseas Chinese Scholar Award from the NSF of China, and several best paper awards. He has served as Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Senior Editor and Associate Editor for numerous journals. Prof. Jiang is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the IFAC, a Fellow of the CAA and is among the Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers. In 2021, he is elected as a foreign member of the Academia Europaea. Funding Information: This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants U1911401 and 61633007 , Science and Technology Major Special Plan of Liaoning Province ( 2020JH1/10100008 ), Consulting Research Project of the Chinese Academy of Engineering ( 2019-XZ-7 ), and in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant EPCN-1903781 . The material in this paper was not presented at any conference. This paper was recommended for publication in revised form by Associate Editor Vijay Gupta under the direction of Editor Christos G. Cassandras. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021",
year = "2022",
month = feb,
doi = "10.1016/j.automatica.2021.110053",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "136",
journal = "Automatica",
issn = "0005-1098",
publisher = "Elsevier Limited",
}