An Emerging Dynamics Approach for Synchronization of Linear Heterogeneous Agents Interconnected Over Switching Topologies

In this letter, we propose an emergent dynamics based tool to approximate the synchronized behavior in large networks of interconnected linear systems with switching interconnection topologies and linear coupling. We assume that the networks are heterogeneous, but the states of all systems are of the same dimension. The goal of this letter is to show that, in the case of sufficiently large coupling gains, the network is practically synchronized, and its' synchronized behavior can be approximated by a reduced order switching system independent of the control gains. The results are ensured for strongly connected networks under fairly mild assumptions by introducing a minimum dwell-time between two consecutive switches. Numerical simulations illustrate the theoretical results.