Stability and synchronization preserving model reduction of multi-agent systems

In this paper, stability and synchronization preserving model reduction schemes are developed for linear multi-agent systems. The multi-agent systems that are considered here are composed of general, yet identical linear subsystems, and the communication topology is assumed to be time-independent. First, under the assumption that the agents have stable internal dynamics and the network is stable, the dynamic order of the agents is reduced such that the corresponding reduced order network is again stable. Then, starting from a synchronized network where agents are allowed to have unstable dynamics, a reduced order model for the network which preserves synchronization is obtained. In addition, model reduction error bounds are established to compare the behavior of the original network to that of the reduced order model. The proposed results are illustrated through a numerical example. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.