Synchronization and Dynamic Consensus of Heterogeneous Networked Systems

We present an analysis framework for the study of synchronization of heterogeneous nonlinear systems interconnected over networks described by directed graphs. Heterogeneous systems may have totally different dynamical models, albeit of the same dimension, or may possess equal models with different lumped parameters. We show that their behavior, when network-interconnected, is fully characterized in terms of two properties whose study may be recasted in terms of the stability analysis of two corresponding interconnected dynamical systems that evolve in orthogonal spaces: on one hand, we have the so-called emergent dynamics and, on the other, the synchronization error dynamics. Based on this premise, we introduce the concept of dynamic consensus and we present results on robust stability which assess the conditions for practical asymptotic synchronization of networked systems and characterize their collective behavior. To illustrate our main theoretical findings we broach a brief case-study on mutual synchronization of heterogeneous chaotic oscillators.