Abstract: In this talk we formulate a cooperative control problem in which the objective is to steer the differences between output variables of the agents to a prescribed compact set via distributed feedback rules. This formulation encompasses several formation stabilization and synchronization problems as special cases. When the information flow between neighboring agents is bidirectional, we show that the passivity properties of the individual components guarantee stability of the network. By exploiting this structure we develop a feedback design methodology and proceed to study the robustness of the resulting feedback laws in the presence of a time-varying communication topology. The next topic discussed is an adaptive design strategy for the agents when the reference velocity of the group is available only to a leader. We conclude the talk with a brief discussion on extending this framework to accommodate complex agent dynamics, such as rigid bodies and flexible structures, with the help of their inherent passivity properties.
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