Distributed Coordination of Multi-agent Networks introduces problems, models, and issues such as collective periodic motion coordination, collective tracking with a dynamic leader, and containment control with multiple leaders, and explores ideas for their solution. Solving these problems extends the existing application domains of multi-agent networks; for example, collective periodic motion coordination is appropriate for applications involving repetitive movements, collective tracking guarantees tracking of a dynamic leader by multiple followers in the presence of reduced interaction and partial measurements, and containment control enables maneuvering of multiple followers by multiple leaders.

Multiagent systems (MAS) are one of the most exciting and the fastest growing domains in the intelligent resource management and agent-oriented technology, which deals with modeling of autonomous decisions making entities. Recent developments have produced very encouraging results in the novel approach of handling multiplayer interactive systems. In particular, the multiagent system approach is adapted to model, control, manage or test the operations and management of several system applications including multi-vehicles, microgrids, multi-robots, where agents represent individual entities in the network. Each participant is modeled as an autonomous participant with independent strategies and responses to outcomes. They are able to operate autonomously and interact pro-actively with their environment. In recent works, the problem of information consensus is addressed, where a team of vehicles communicate with each other to agree on key pieces of information that enable them to work together in a coordinated fashion. The problem is challenging because communication channels have limited range and there are possibilities of fading and dropout. The book comprises chapters on synchronization and consensus in multiagent systems. It shows that the joint presentation of synchronization and consensus enables readers to learn about similarities and differences of both concepts. It reviews the cooperative control of multi-agent dynamical systems interconnected by a communication network topology. Using the terminology of cooperative control, each system is endowed with its own state variable and dynamics. A fundamental problem in multi-agent dynamical systems on networks is the design of distributed protocols that guarantee consensus or synchronization in the sense that the states of all the systems reach the same value. It is evident from the results that research in multiagent systems offer opportunities for further developments in theoretical, simulation and implementations. This book attempts to fill this gap and aims at presenting a comprehensive volume that documents theoretical aspects and practical applications.

The paradigm of ‘multi-agent’ cooperative control is the challenge frontier for new control system application domains, and as a research area it has experienced a considerable increase in activity in recent years. This volume, the result of a UCLA collaborative project with Caltech, Cornell and MIT, presents cutting edge results in terms of the “dimensions” of cooperative control from leading researchers worldwide. This dimensional decomposition allows the reader to assess the multi-faceted landscape of cooperative control. Cooperative Control of Distributed Multi-Agent Systems is organized into four main themes, or dimensions, of cooperative control: distributed control and computation, adversarial interactions, uncertain evolution and complexity management. The military application of autonomous vehicles systems or multiple unmanned vehicles is primarily targeted; however much of the material is relevant to a broader range of multi-agent systems including cooperative robotics, distributed computing, sensor networks and data network congestion control. Cooperative Control of Distributed Multi-Agent Systems offers the reader an organized presentation of a variety of recent research advances, supporting software and experimental data on the resolution of the cooperative control problem. It will appeal to senior academics, researchers and graduate students as well as engineers working in the areas of cooperative systems, control and optimization.

Assuming only neighbor-neighbor interaction among vehicles, this monograph develops distributed consensus strategies that ensure that the information states of all vehicles in a network converge to a common value. Readers learn to deal with groups of autonomous vehicles in aerial, terrestrial, and submarine environments. Plus, they get the tools needed to overcome impaired communication by using constantly updated neighbor-neighbor interchange.

This book contains three well-written research tutorials that inform the graduate reader about the forefront of current research in multi-agent optimization. These tutorials cover topics that have not yet found their way in standard books and offer the reader the unique opportunity to be guided by major researchers in the respective fields. Multi-agent optimization, lying at the intersection of classical optimization, game theory, and variational inequality theory, is at the forefront of modern optimization and has recently undergone a dramatic development. It seems timely to provide an overview that describes in detail ongoing research and important trends. This book concentrates on Distributed Optimization over Networks; Differential Variational Inequalities; and Advanced Decomposition Algorithms for Multi-agent Systems. This book will appeal to both mathematicians and mathematically oriented engineers and will be the source of inspiration for PhD students and researchers.

Distributed Sensor Networks is the first book of its kind to examine solutions to this problem using ideas taken from the field of multiagent systems. The field of multiagent systems has itself seen an exponential growth in the past decade, and has developed a variety of techniques for distributed resource allocation. Distributed Sensor Networks contains contributions from leading, international researchers describing a variety of approaches to this problem based on examples of implemented systems taken from a common distributed sensor network application; each approach is motivated, demonstrated and tested by way of a common challenge problem. The book focuses on both practical systems and their theoretical analysis, and is divided into three parts: the first part describes the common sensor network challenge problem; the second part explains the different technical approaches to the common challenge problem; and the third part provides results on the formal analysis of a number of approaches taken to address the challenge problem.

This book covers the fundamental principles, new theories and methodologies, and potential applications of hybrid intelligent networks. Chapters focus on hybrid neural networks and networked multi-agent networks, including their communication, control and optimization synthesis. This text also provides a succinct but useful guideline for designing neural network-based hybrid artificial intelligence for brain-inspired computation systems and applications in the Internet of Things. Artificial Intelligence has developed into a deep research field targeting robots with more brain-inspired perception, learning, decision-making abilities, etc. This text devoted to a tutorial on hybrid intelligent networks that have been identified in nature and engineering, especially in the brain, modeled by hybrid dynamical systems and complex networks, and have shown potential application to brain-inspired intelligence. Included in this text are impulsive neural networks, neurodynamics, multiagent networks, hybrid dynamics analysis, collective dynamics, as well as hybrid communication, control and optimization methods. Graduate students who are interested in artificial intelligence and hybrid intelligence, as well as professors and graduate students who are interested in neural networks and multiagent networks will find this textbook a valuable resource. AI engineers and consultants who are working in wireless communications and networking will want to buy this book. Also, professional and academic institutions in universities and Mobile vehicle companies and engineers and managers who concern humans in the loop of IoT will also be interested in this book.