Consensus in bistable and multistable multi-agent systems

Consensus in bistable and multistable multi-agent systems (MAS) is investigated. The considered MAS consists of agents with nonlinear, bistable or multistable dynamics and local coupling. For this MAS, consensus conditions are presented for arbitrary large networks depending on the algebraic connectivity of the underlying graph. In contrast to most publications in the consensus literature, the considered MAS has only a finite number of discrete consensus points instead of a consensus subspace. This introduces a new kind of consensus problem to the literature on MAS. The differences to classical consensus problems are discussed and the main result is illustrated in a simulation example.