An abstract model for designing the communication structure of networked controllers

Networked controllers are used to synchronise autonomous agents by driving the agent states towards a common trajectory. This paper analyses the command-following behaviour of leader-follower systems in dependence upon the communication structure of the controller. It introduces a quantitative measure of the delay that information is exposed to while it is transmitted from the leader agent through the network. This measure can be used to find communication structures in which all agent outputs follow the reference trajectory with small delays. It helps to find a trade-off between the number of communication links and the quality of the system performance. The results are illustrated by a robot formation problem.