High-order bipartite containment control in multi-agent systems over time-varying cooperation-competition networks

This paper examines the problem of bipartite containment control in high-order multi-agent systems, in which time-varying cooperation-competition networks are utilized to simulate the interactions among agents. Suppose there are two subgroups of followers, in which the followers in the same subgroup cooperate with each other and the followers belonging to different subgroups compete with each other. It is further assumed that the leaders cooperate with the followers in one subgroup and compete with the followers in another subgroup. Under these assumptions, it is shown that the followers who cooperate with the leaders will gradually enter the entity convex hull composed of the leaders, while the followers who compete with the leaders will enter the virtual convex hull opposite to the entity convex hull. In addition, this study also finds that that all followers kept moving without stopping when they entered the convex hulls. The authenticity of these discoveries is confirmed by a simulation example. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.