Controlling Connectivity of Dynamic Graphs

The control of mobile networks of multiple agents raises fundamental and novel problems in controlling the structure of the resulting dynamic graphs. In this paper, we consider the problem of controlling a network of agents so that the resulting motion always preserves various connectivity properties. In particular, we consider preserving k-hop connectivity, where agents are allowed to move while maintaining connections to agents that are no more than k-hops away. The connectivity constraint is translated to constrains on individual agent motion by considering the dynamics of the adjacency matrix and related constructs from algebraic graph theory. As special cases, we obtain motion constraints that can preserve the exact structure of the initial dynamic graph, or may simply preserve the usual notion connectivity while the structure of the graph changes over time. We conclude by illustrating various interesting problems that can be achieved while preserving connectivity constraints.