Multiagent Flocking Under General Communication Rule

In this paper, we consider a multiagent system consisting of mobile agents with second-order dynamics. The communication network is determined by a general interaction rule based on the distance between agents. The goal of this paper is to determine practical conditions ensuring that the agents asymptotically agree on a common velocity, i.e., a flocking behavior is achieved. Unlike previous studies on the topic, our results simultaneously satisfy the three following features: 1) our conditions apply to a model, which does not require long distance communication; 2) they only depend on the initial positions and velocities of the agents; and 3) most importantly, our results allow for the disconnection of communication links which are not necessary for flocking. To circumvent the difficulty arising from the state dependent dynamics, a suitable bounding process is used. We apply our result to two cases, where communication takes place either within deterministic or stochastic distance radiuses. Our result is illustrated through simulations.