A Game Theoretic Framework for Distributed Control of Multi-Agent Systems with Acyclic Communication Topologies

A multi-agent system consisting of heterogeneous agents, described by nonlinear dynamics and with inter-agent communication characterised by a directed acyclic graph, is considered in this paper. A framework for designing distributed control strategies obtained via the combination of local non-cooperative differential games is provided. The resulting dynamic (local) state-feedback control laws can be computed offline and in a decentralised manner. Conditions for ensuring stability of the overall closed-loop system are provided, before the proposed game theoretic framework is applied to a formation control problem.