Asymptotically Optimal Distributed Consensus of Heterogeneous Multiagent Systems

This paper provides a new perspective for solving the consensus problem of heterogeneous multi-agent systems with the aid of linear quadratic (LQ) optimal control. It differs from the existing consensus control for heterogeneous systems, where a reference generator must be designed, leading to a more complex design than that of the homogeneous case. This paper develops a distributed asymptotically optimal consensus controller by designing a novel type of observer and feed-forward controller. The proposed controller is obtained by solving Riccati equations, and it is a unified design framework for solving the consensus problem for heterogeneous and homogeneous systems. Moreover, the convergence speed under the proposed distributed asymptotically optimal controller is proved to be faster than those of traditional methods. A simulation example further verifies the effectiveness of the proposed scheme and a much faster convergence speed than the existing algorithms.