Consensus of Multi-Agent Systems Under Periodic Time-Varying Network *

In this paper, we address the consensus problem for a class of feedback linearizable nonlinear multi-agent systems under a dynamically changing and periodic network communication. The information delivered throughout the communication network is the output of each identical MIMO autonomous agent which can be of any order. First of all, with a local-level control strategy, we show that the consensus is reached by only using a linear time-invariant compensator if the network changes sufficiently fast in time and the compensator is designed so that the multi-agent system achieves the consensus for the average of the communication network. In this case, it is also shown that the state trajectories are close to those of average system if one of the agents is. Finally, in the case of integrator chains, we relax the fast switching condition of the network and give an example that verifies the result.