On the Controllability Properties of Circulant Networks

This paper examines the controllability of a group of first order agents, adopting a weighted consensus-type coordination protocol over a circulant network. Specifically, it is shown that a circulant network with Laplacian eigenvalues of maximum algebraic multiplicity q is controllable from q nodes. Our approach leverages on the Cauchy-Binet formula, which in conjunction with the Popov-Belevitch-Hautus test, leads to new insights on structural aspects of network controllability.