Multi-agent coordination with general linear models: A distributed output regulation approach

In this paper, the distributed output regulation problem of linear multi-agent systems is considered. Its background includes active leader following for the agents to track a leader with different dynamics and unmeasurable variables, and multi-agent consensus with environmental inputs. The driving force from active leaders or the environmental disturbance here is formulated as an exogenous system of the considered multi-agent networks. Then a systematic distributed design approach is proposed to handle output regulation via dynamic state feedback with the help of internal model. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the solvability are given.