Signed consensus problems on networks of agents with fixed and switching topologies

摘要

This paper deals with signed consensus problems for networks of agents in the presence of both fixed and switching topologies. By specifying signs for the agents, they are divided into two groups and are enabled to reach agreement on a consensus value which is the same in modulus for both groups but not in sign. Using nearest-neighbour interaction rules, we propose the distributed protocols and address their exponential convergence problem. It is shown that the quasi-strong connectivity of fixed networks or joint quasi-strong connectivity of switching networks can provide a necessary and sufficient guarantee for all agents to achieve signed consensus exponentially fast. In particular, the signed consensus results can include as special cases those of bipartite consensus in signed networks with fixed and switching topologies. Numerical simulations are also provided to illustrate the exponential convergence performance of the proposed signed consensus protocols.