Leader selection in multi-agent systems subject to partial failure

This paper studies the structural controllability of a leader-follower multi-agent system. A controllability condition is first provided based on the topology of the information flow graph. Conditions for controllability preservation in a multiple-leader system subject to failure in the agents and communication links are then investigated. The problem of optimal leader selection is introduced, which is concerned with finding the minimum number of agents whose selection as leaders increase the reliability of the network in terms of controllability. A polynomial-time algorithm is subsequently presented to solve the problem for undirected information flow graphs.