Negotiation is an interaction that happens in multi-agent systems when agents have conflicting objectives and must look for an acceptable agreement. A typical negotiating situation involves two agents that cannot reach their goals by themselves because they do not have some resources they need or they do not know how to use them to reach their goals. Therefore, they must start a negotiation dialogue, taking also into account that they might have incomplete or wrong beliefs about the other agent's...

In order to describe the interconnection among agents with multi-dimensional states, we generalize the notion of a graph Laplacian by extending the adjacency weights (or weighted interconnection coefficients) from scalars to matrices. More precisely, we use positive definite matrices to denote full multi-dimensional interconnections, while using nonnegative definite matrices to denote partial multi-dimensional interconnections. We prove that the generalized graph Laplacian inherits the spectral...

In this paper, we study a consensus problem in multi-agent systems, where the entire system is decentralized in the sense that each agent can only obtain information (states or outputs) from its neighbor agents. The existing design methods found in the literature are mostly based on a graph Laplacian of the graph which describes the interconnection structure among the agents, and such methods cannot deal with complicated control specification. For this purpose, we propose to reduce the consensus...

An original Nyquist-based frequency domain robust decentralized controller (DC) design technique for robust stability and guaranteed nominal performance is proposed, applicable for continuous-time uncertain systems described by a set of transfer function matrices. To provide nominal performance, interactions are included in individual design using one selected characteristic locus of the interaction matrix, used to reshape frequency responses of decoupled subsystems; such modified subsystems are...

During interactions, system actors may face up misunderstandings when their local states contain inconsistent data about the same fact. Misunderstandings in interactions are likely to reduce interactivity performances (deviation or deadlock) or even affect overall system behavior. In this paper, we characterize misunderstandings in interactions between system actors (that may be human users or system agents) in interactive adaptive systems. To deal with such misunderstandings and ensure state consistency,...

In this paper, we consider a distributed stochastic computation of $AXB=C$ with local set constraints over an multi-agent system, where each agent over the network only knows a few rows or columns of matrixes. Through formulating an equivalent distributed optimization problem for seeking least-squares solutions of $AXB=C$, we propose a distributed stochastic mirror-descent algorithm for solving the equivalent distributed problem. Then, we provide the sublinear convergence of the proposed algorithm. Moreover,...

In this paper, we study decentralized $H_{\infty }$ feedback control systems with quantized signals in local input-output (control) channels. We first assume that a decentralized output feedback controller has been designed for a multi-channel continuous-time system so that the closed-loop system is Hurwitz stable and a desired $H_{\infty }$ disturbance attenuation level is achieved. However, since the local measurement outputs are quantized by a general quantizer before they are passed to the controller, the system’s...

This paper addresses a vehicle sequencing problem for adjacent intersections under the framework of Autonomous Intersection Management (AIM). In the context of AIM, autonomous vehicles are considered to be independent individuals and the traffic control aims at deciding on an efficient vehicle passing sequence. Since there are considerable vehicle passing combinations, how to find an efficient vehicle passing sequence in a short time becomes a big challenge, especially for more than one intersection....

A generalized structure of complementary matrices involved in the input-state- output Inclusion Principle for linear time-invariant systems (LTI) including contractibility conditions for static state feedback controllers is well known. In this paper, it is shown how to further extend this structure in a systematic way when considering contractibility of dynamic controllers. Necessary and sufficient conditions for contractibility are proved in terms of both unstructured and block structured complementary...

The simultaneous problem of consensus and trajectory tracking of linear multi-agent systems is considered in this paper, where the dynamics of each agent is represented by a single-input single-output linear system. In order to solve this problem, a distributed control strategy is proposed in this work, where the trajectory and the formation of the agents are achieved asymptotically even in the presence of switching communication topologies and smooth formation changes, and ensuring the closed-loop...

The paper presents an algorithm for the solution of the consensus problem of a linear multi-agent system composed of identical agents. The control of the agents is delayed, however, these delays are, in general, not equal in all agents. The control algorithm design is based on the $H_{\infty }$-control, the results are formulated by means of linear matrix inequalities. The dimension of the resulting convex optimization problem is proportional to the dimension of one agent only but does not depend on the number...

The problem of stabilization of large-scale systems and the consensus problem of multi-agent systems are related, similar tools for their solution are used. Therefore, they are occasionally confused. Although both problems show similar features, one can also observe important differences. A comparison of both problems is presented in this paper. In both cases, attention is paid to the explanation of the effects of the time delays. The most important fact is that, if the time delays are heterogeneous,...

In this paper, we consider a multi-agent consensus problem with an active leader and variable interconnection topology. The dynamics of the active leader is given in a general form of linear system. The switching interconnection topology with communication delay among the agents is taken into consideration. A neighbor-based estimator is designed for each agent to obtain the unmeasurable state variables of the dynamic leader, and then a distributed feedback control law is developed to achieve consensus....

This paper investigates the high-order consensus problem for the multi-agent systems with agent's dynamics described by high-order integrator, and adopts a general consensus algorithm composed of the states' coordination control. Under communication delay, consensus algorithm in usual asynchronously-coupled form just can make the agents achieve a stationary consensus, and sufficient consensus condition is obtained based on frequency-domain analysis. Besides, a predictor-based consensus algorithm...

Traditional traffic control systems based on traffic light have achieved a great success in reducing the average delay of vehicles or in improving the traffic capacity. The main idea of these systems is based on the optimization of the cycle time, the phase sequence, and the phase duration. The right-of-ways are assigned to vehicles of one or several movements for a specific time. With the emergence of cooperative driving, an innovative traffic control concept, Autonomous Intersection Management...

The paper presents selected aspects of evolutionary sets of safe ship trajectories-a method which applies evolutionary algorithms and some of the assumptions of game theory to solving ship encounter situations. For given positions and motion parameters of the ships, the method finds a near optimal set of safe trajectories of all ships involved in an encounter. The method works in real time and the solutions must be returned within one minute, which enforces speeding up the optimisation process....

A new class of controlled time-varying complex dynamical networks with similarity is investigated and a decentralized holographic-structure controller is designed to stabilize the network asymptotically at its equilibrium states. The control design is based on the similarity assumption for isolated node dynamics and the topological structure of the overall network. Network synchronization problems, both locally and globally, are considered on the ground of decentralized control approach. Each sub-controller...