Coordination and control of multi-agent dynamic systems: Models and approaches

Abstract

The field of multi-agent dynamic systems is an inter-disciplinary research field that has become very popular in the recent years in parallel with the significant interest in the practical applications of such systems in various areas including robotics. In this article we give a relatively short review of this field from the system dynamics and control perspective. We first focus on mathematical modelling of multi-agent systems paying particular attention on the agent dynamics models available in the literature. Then we present a number of problems on coordination and control of multi-agent systems which have gained significant attention recently and various approaches to these problems. Relevant to these problems and approaches, we summarize some of the recent results on stability, robustness, and performance of multi-agent dynamic systems which appeared in the literature. The article is concluded with some remarks on the implementation and application side of the control designs developed for multi-agent systems. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.