Cooperative control over link-limited and packet-dropping networks

In this paper we consider cooperative control of n dynamic agents to optimize an overall system performance metric. Due to limited communication resources, there exist structured interconnections among the agents and the interest is placed in synthesizing a suitably distributed control law to provide a given performance level. Based on a Youla-Kucera parameterization approach, the problem of designing a distributed controller to deliver given performance levels for different network topologies is convex in the Youla-Kucera parameter Q. Furthermore, if in addition to structured interconnections packet drops exist in the transmission of information, we provide convex conditions to guarantee mean square stability and system performance. The proposed method is also extended to deal with systems of triangular structures.