Coupling effect and pole assignment in trajectory regulation of multi-agent systems

This paper revisits a well studied leader-following consensus problem of linear multi-agent systems, while aiming at follower nodes' transient performance. Conventionally, when not all nodes have access to the leader's state information, distributed observers are designed estimate state, and coupled via communication network. Then each node only needs track its observer's independently, without interacting with neighbors. deliberately introduces certain coupling effect among nodes, such that tend converge other cooperatively on way they leader. Moreover, by suitably designing control law, poles can be assigned as desired, thus tracking performance also adjusted.