Cluster consensus control of generic linear multi-agent systems under directed topology with acyclic partition

This paper investigates the cluster consensus control for generic linear multi-agent systems (MASs) under directed interaction topology via distributed feedback controller. Focus of this paper is particularly on addressing the following problem which is of both theoretical and practical interests but have not been considered in the existing literature: under what kind of interaction among the clusters can the cluster consensus control be achieved regardless of the magnitudes of the coupling strengths among the agents? Directed acyclic interaction topology among the clusters is proved to have this property. As opposed to the algebraic conditions provided in the existing literature, conditions for guaranteeing the cluster consensus control in this paper are presented in terms of purely the graphic topology conditions and thus are very easy to be verified. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.