Distributed Identification for Node and Edge Numbers of Time-Varying Anonymous Networks

In this article, a distributed algorithm is proposed to identify the node and edge numbers of anonymous leader–follower networks. The present distributed method works merely by exchanging scalar information by local intercommunication. The merit of the algorithm lies in identifying the required network parameters in time-varying topological networks without special initialization. Sufficient conditions are derived for cascading systems to theoretically guarantee the exponential convergence of the individual estimation to the total number of nodes or edges merely by local information exchange. Finally, numerical simulations are conducted to substantiate the effectiveness of the present identification algorithm.