Local Averaging for Consensus Over Communication Links With Random Dropouts

This letter proposes a mechanism for consensusability of multi-agent systems which communicate through packet loss channels. A distinguishing feature of our approach is that we assume that each agent may act on an estimate of the state of its neighbours when packet losses occur. A system using the proposed compensation method subject to nonidentical Markovian dropouts is analysed and conditions for consensusability are proposed. Simulation results are provided which verify the proposed conditions and show that it allows for consensusability over a wider range of dropout probabilities than methods previously documented in the literature.