Forced Bipartite Consensus for Multi-Agent Systems

This paper addresses the problem of forced bipartite consensus on multi-agent systems (MAS) with application to quadrotor coordination. Opposite to standard consensus algorithms, the purpose of bipartite consensus is to divide the MAS into two groups or clusters. Resulting groups or clusters converge to the exact same solution with opposite sign, i.e. agents in the same group find a consensus or agreement while clusters, between them, get to a disagreed consensus. We extend the concept of multi-agent bipartite consensus to the case of forced bipartite consensus on leader-based multi-agent systems. Since tracking of a desired reference is based on the center of mass of the entire group, we analyze the controllability and observability properties from input and output of the leader. Quadrotor platoon switching behavior between coordination and danger avoidance shows a potential application of the proposed control approach. Results have been validated in simulation.