Leader selection via the manipulability of leader-follower networks

In this paper, we address the problem of selecting leaders in a network by investigating how much instantaneous impact the leaders have on the remaining agents. As a measurement of the influence of leaders´ inputs, we exploit the notion of manipulability, which is recently developed for leader-follower networks driven by a state-dependent weighted consensus equation. This paper first extends the manipulability index in order to measure the influence of leaders´ inputs on the network centroid. We then demonstrate in simulation how the manipulability index is suitable for selecting effective leaders.