Consensus of Multi-agent Systems with Higher Order Dynamics

This paper considers the consensus problem of multi-agent systems, where each agent has n-th order dynamic mode. Three cases are considered. First of all, the agents are assumed to be lined up as a chain. Each agent can obtain the information from the agent ahead of it. Secondly, assume each agent can obtain the information from its neighbors and the adjacent graph with fixed or varying topology is connected. Thirdly, we consider a nonlinear case. Under certain assumption, it can be transformed into a linear case. In different cases we prove that the consensus can be achieved by local-information-based decentralized controls. Some existing results become particular cases of our general result.