Multi-agent flocking under topological interactions

In this paper, we consider a multi-agent system consisting of mobile agents with second-order dynamics. The communication network is determined by the so-called topological interaction rule: agents interact with a fixed number of their closest neighbors. This rule comes from observations of real flock of starlings. The non-symmetry of the interactions adds to the difficulty of the analysis. The goal of this paper is to determine practical conditions (on the initial positions and velocities of agents) ensuring that the agents asymptotically agree on a common velocity (i.e. a flocking behavior is achieved). For this purpose, we define a notion of hierarchical structure in the interaction graph which allows to establish such conditions, building upon previous work on multi-agent systems with switching communication networks. Though conservative, our approach gives conditions that can be verified a priori. Our result is illustrated through simulations. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.