State synchronization of multi-agent systems via static or adaptive nonlinear dynamic protocols

This paper studies state synchronization of homogeneous multi-agent systems (MAS) with partial-state coupling. We identify four classes of agents, for which static linear protocol can be designed. They are agents which are squared-down passive, squared-down passifiable via output feedback, squared-down passifiable via input feedforward and squared-down minimum-phase with relative degree 1. We find that, for agents which are squared-down passive, the static protocol does not need any network information, as long as the network graph contains a directed spanning tree. For the other three classes of agents, the static protocol needs rough information on the network graph, that is either a lower bound for the real part or an upper bound for the modulus of the non-zero eigenvalues of the Laplacian matrix associated with the network graph. However, when adaptive nonlinear dynamic protocols are utilized, even this rough information about the network can be dispensed with.