A Hybrid Thermodynamic Control Protocol for Semistability and Consensus of Network Systems With Intermittent Information

Network systems involve distributed decision making for coordination of networks of dynamic agents and address a broad area of applications in science and engineering. In this article, we develop a thermodynamically based framework for addressing consensus problems using a hybrid control protocol architecture with a dynamic communication topology wherein communication events are triggered via state-dependent resettings consistent with thermodynamic principles. The proposed hybrid controller architecture involves the exchange of intermittent state information between agents guaranteeing that the closed-loop dynamical network is semistable to an equipartitioned equilibrium representing a state of information consensus consistent with basic thermodynamic principles.