Research On Multi-agent System Consensus And Its Application For The Flocking Control

The applications of the multi-agent systems have been more and more widely,which are used in distributed computing, flocking control, unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) formation and collaborative search and rescue using Underwater Robot, etc. Atpresent, consensus of the multi-agent systems is mainly focused on the linear systemand unified consensus. However, many actual physical systems are non-linear and havethe problem of group consensus. In this thesis, to address this problem, the nonlinearmulti-agent systems’ consensus and group consensus of the multi-agent system will beinvestigated in-depth, and at the same time, the related research results will be appliedto the flocking control of the multi-agent systems. The main works of the dissertationare as follows:1. The consistency problems of the nonlinear multi-agent systems are studied. Forthe nonlinear multi-agent systems with the fixed topology and transformed topology,taking into account the system delays, four theorems are proposed to determine whetherthe multi-agent systems can achieve average consistent state for the following cases：thefixed topology symmetry delay, the fixed topology asymmetric delay, the switchedtopology symmetry delay and the switched topology asymmetric delay. Especially forthe asymmetric delays, a special Lyapunov equation is created to solve the problem.Meanwhile, the correctness of the above theories is verified by numerical simulation.2. The group consensus problems of multi-agent systems are researched. Based onthe analysis of disadvantages in the existed group consensus protocols of themulti-agent systems, the classic average consensus protocol is used to solve the groupconsensus problems of the multi-agent systems. For fixed and switched topology of themulti-agent systems, considering the communication delay and no communication delay,four theorems are putted forward to make the multi-agent systems reach groupconsensus, and the simulation results validate the correctness of the theories.3. The application of the multi-agent systems’ consistency in flocking control isinvestigated. A flocking algorithm containing nonlinear consistency item of themulti-agent systems is presented. According to the principle of LaSalle invariance, this algorithm can make the multi-agent systems achieve consensus. Meanwhile, the groupconsensus applications of the multi-agent systems in flocking control are analyzed.Finally, the flocking simulations using the presented algorithm indicate the validity ofthe theory.