Decentralized control across bit-limited communication channels: an example

We formulate a simple discrete time two-agent optimal formation control problem with limited communication capacity. Two cases are studied: without communication constraints and with limited communication capacity. In the first case, we show how to approach the globally optimal solution with local decisions. In the second case, a performance metric is introduced and we show that the performance can be impaired by as much as 20% if we limit the amount of information exchanged in real time. We also introduce a noisy channel into our problem and present some preliminary results.