2021 29th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED)
June 22-25, 2021. Bari, Puglia, Italy
Dynamic Average Consensus based on Group Information for
Multi-Swarm Systems.
Fabien NIEL and François BATEMAN1
Abstract— This paper deals with distributed protocols to
track the time-varying average of a dynamic Multi-Swarm Sys-
tem (MSS) using group information. To solve the swarm average
consensus problem, the agents of each swarm can exchange
information at the intra-swarm level. However, only one agent
of each swarm, referred to as the swarm communicating agent,
can share its group information with the other swarms. We
show that the discrete time protocols asymptotically achieve
consensus on the dynamic swarm average with a bounded error.
The algorithms are developed for both fixed and switching
communicating agents configurations with strongly connected
and weighted balanced directed graphs. We provide numerical
simulations to illustrate the efficiency of our solutions.
I. INTRODUCTION
Many systems can be described as large-scale networks
of simple agents. Consensus methods allow the emergence
of collective behaviors from basic rules, using local infor-
mation. These methods deliver robust results for their task,
despite a changing environment and non-stationary network
configurations such as the loss of several agents for instance.
Over the last decades, consensus problems for Multi-Agent
Systems (MAS) have been of particular interest [1]–[3] and
have found many applications such as mobile robots and
UAVs cooperative control [4], spacecraft formation [5], smart
electrical grids [6], distributed optimization methods [7],
sensor fusion [8] and distributed Kalman filter [9].
Dynamic consensus problem has been significantly stud-
ied, particularly since the work of [10] where the reference
signals derivative is added to the consensus equation to track
the time-varying average. More recently, the tutorial from
[11] analyses this protocol and presents several algorithms
to cope with some of the challenges such as the initialization,
the convergence rate or the robustness. In [12] and [13],
dynamic consensus algorithms are applied to the containment
control problem. Open multi-agent systems, where agents
may join or leave the network at any time, have also been
investigated in [14] and [15], employing a modified dynamic
consensus.
In [16], the MAS is partitioned into several groups.
The consensus is reached using not only the agents’ states
but also an intragoup collective information, called group
information. If this value has been previously introduced in
[17], [16] uses a hierarchical structure, combining the agent
1 Fabien NIEL and François BATEMAN are with the Centre de Recherche
de l’Ecole de l’air at the French Air Force Academy, Salon de Provence
13300, France
fabien.niel.af@gmail.com or
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2912-937X
francois.bateman@ecole-air.fr
978-0-7381-1098-1/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE 1222
information and the group information to solve the consensus
in both continuous and discrete time. This work is extended
to nonlinear group information transformation in [18]. In
these previous works, the group information is supposed to
be available to all the agents of the network, which may be
restricting for some applications.
3 4
2 1
I 7
5
6
II
11 8
10 9
III
Fig. 1. Example of a multi-swarm system with 11 agents divided into 3
interacting swarms. Plain blue arrows represent the intra-swarm interactions
while the dotted red arrows show the inter-swarm interactions of the
communicating agents.
In this paper, we study the average consensus for a set
of swarms. We refer to this problem as the multi-swarm
average consensus. In this problem, the agents of each swarm
calculate the average of their swarm. This local information
represents the group information. Some of the agents of each
swarm can communicate their own group information with
one or several agents from the other swarms as presented
Fig. 1. The objective is to track the dynamic average of the
set of swarms based on group information rather than agent
information. In particular, this work proposes a particular
protocol to consider the possible switchings between the
agents communicating at the inter-swarm level. The com-
munication are assumed to be in discrete time. Comparing
to a multi-agent system, this multi-swarm approach can
ultimately provide an interesting protocol to reduce the
number of interactions between the agents.
The paper is organized as follows. Section II presents some
basic notations, graph theory fundamentals and a preliminary
result, concerning dynamic average consensus. The dynamic
swarm average consensus problem is then formulated in Sec-
tion III. Section IV details the main results for both fixed and
switching communicating agents configurations. Numerical
simulations are provided and discussed in Section V. Finally,

Section VI concludes this paper.
II. MATHEMATICAL PRELIMINARIES
A. Notations
The sets of real, positive real, non-negative real, and
natural numbers are respectively denoted by R, R>0 , R≥0
and N. Rn and Rn×m represent respectively the set of n
dimension column vectors and the set of n × m matrices.
Given A ∈ Rn×m , AT represents the transpose of this
matrix with AT ∈ Rm×n . Col(.) denotes a column vector.
1n is Col(1, ..., 1) of dimension n × 1. Given x ∈ Rn , the
Euclidean norm is denoted by kxk. Consider a set of m
swarms containing respectively nI agents for I ∈ {1, .., m}.
Then, xiI represents the ith agent of the I th swarm with
i ∈ VI = {1, .., nI }. The aggregate of the ni agents
iT
h
nI T
is denoted by xI = x1T I , .., x . |V| represents the
I
cardinality of set V.
B. Graph theory
Some necessary results and definitions concerning graph
theory from [11], [19], [20] are provided in the sequel.
A weighted digraph G = (V, E, A) is defined by a finite set
of n vertices V , a finite set of edges E ⊂ V 2 and a weighted
adjacency matrix A where aij > 0 if (i, j) ∈ E, aij = 0
otherwise. The weighted out-degree and weightedP in-degree
Pn n nI j=1 I
are respectively dout (i) = j=1 aji and din (i) = j=1 aij .
We denote by dmax the maximum weighted out-degree. A
digraph is weighted-balanced if for each vertex i ∈ V, the
weighted in-degree is equal to the weighted out-degree. The
out-degree matrix is represented by Dout = [δij ] where δij =
dout (i) for i = j and 0 otherwise. The Laplacian matrix L
is given by Dout − A. The smallest eigenvalue is 0 and
the corresponding eigenvector is 1n such as L1n = 0. We
denote by λ2 the second smallest eigenvalue of Sym(L) =
(L + LT )/2 .
A directed path is an ordered sequence of vertices. A
digraph is strongly connected if there exists a directed path
between every pair of vertices {vi , vj } ∈ V 2 .
Theorem 1 (Dynamic average consensus algorithm [11]):
Let G(V, E) be a strongly connected and weight-balanced
digraph of N agents. Assume that each agent i ∈ V has
access to a dynamic input ri (k) = ri (tk ) at time tk = kδ,
δ ∈ R>0 , k ∈ N. For δ ∈ (0, β −1 (dmax )−1 ), where β ∈ R>0
if each agent i ∈ V implements
N
pi (tk+1 ) = pi (tk ) + δβ
X
aij (xi (tk ) − xj (tk )),
j=1
xi (tk ) = ri (tk ) − pi (tk )
starting at pi (0) = 0, then the trajectory k → xi (k) of agent
i ∈ V is bounded and satisfies
N
1 X j γ(∞)δ
lim kxi (tk ) − r (tk )k ≤
k→∞ N j=1 βλ2
with
1
sup k(IN − 1N 1TN )(r(tk̄+1 ) − r(tk̄ ))k = γ(tk ) < ∞.
k̄∈Z≥k N
III. PROBLEM FORMULATION
Consider a MSS composed of n agents partitioned into a
set of m swarms, G = [G1 , .., Gm ].
Each agent belongs to only one swarm and can only
communicates with the neighbors of its own swarm. We
define for each swarm a digraph GI = (VI , EI , AI ), I =
{1, ..m}. We denote λI,2 , their second smallest eigenvalues
and dmax
G = max dmax (GI ). Using a dynamic consensus
I
algorithm, each swarm tracks its own group information. The
group information is shared between the swarms using only
a single agent from each swarm in order to compute the
average of the swarms’ group information. Thus, we can
define a digraph G = (V, E, A) where |V| = m. We denote
dmax the maximum degree of G and λ2 , the second smallest
eigenvalue.
Assumption 1: The digraphs at the intra and inter-swarm
level are strongly connected and weight-balanced.
1 Pm
We define the swarm average x̄S (tk ) = x̄I (tk )
th
m I=1
with x̄I the group information of the I -swarm. We select
the swarm element average, x̄I (tk ) as the group information
1 Pni j
such as x̄I (tk ) = x (tk ).
Remark 1: Note that in general the swarm average is
different from the average of all the agents, i.e. x̄S (tk ) 6=
1 PnI j
x (tk ).
n j=1
These information are then used to solve the swarm
average consensus problem as defined:
Definition 1: (swarm average consensus) The swarm av-
erage consensus is reached if ∃ e ∈ R≥0
lim kw̄I − x̄S k ≤ e, I ∈ {1, .., m} (4)
k→∞
with w̄I the swarm average estimation of the I th -swarm.
This configuration aims at taking advantage of the local
swarm information and reducing the communication between
the agents of different swarms, as in multi agent consensus.
This system is also different from [16] since the group
information is computed internally by the swarms and shared
by only a single agent of each swarm, eventually switching.
IV. M AIN R ESULTS
(1) A. Dynamic Group Information consensus with fixed com-
municating agents
In this section, and without loss of generality, we consider
(2)
that only the first agent of each swarm can communicate with
the other swarms and execute the swarm average consensus.
We later refer to these agents as the communicating agents.
Let introduce the group information discrete-time proto-
col, based on two hierarchical level proportional dynamic
(3) average consensus algorithms. The first average consensus,
executed by all the agents inside each swarm, aims at estimat-
ing the group information, i.e. the swarm element average.
1223
The second algorithm, only executed by the communicating This result holds ∀I ∈ {1, .., m} and ∀i ∈ {1, .., nI }, and
agents, estimates the overall swarm average. in particular for i = 1. Considering that the communicating
Using their own position as reference signal, ri = xi , agent is the first agent of each swarm, we have wI1 = r̄I ,
each agent i ∈ VI , ∀I ∈ {1, .., m} executes the following ∀I ∈ {1, .., m} and we can write:
algorithm, for δa ∈ (0, β −1 (dmax
G )
−1
), where β ∈ R>0 : nI
1 X γ(∞)δ
N lim kr̄I (tk ) − rj (tk )k ≤ (10)
X k→∞ nI j=1 I βλI,2
piI (tk+1 ) = piI (tk ) + δa β aIij (wIi (tk ) − wIj (tk )), (5a)
j=1 1 PnI j
With r (tk ) = x̄I (tk )
wIi (tk ) = riI (tk ) − piI (tk ), (5b) nI j=1 I
γ(∞)δ
with piI (0) = 0. lim kr̄I (tk ) − x̄I (tk )k ≤ (11)
Considering wI1 = r̄I , ∀I ∈ {1, .., m}, and for δs ∈ k→∞ βλI,2
(0, β̄ −1 (dmax )−1 ), where β̄ ∈ R>0 each communicating Considering the second part of Eq. (8), we have:
agent implements : m m
1 X 1 X
m k r̄I (tk ) − x̄I (tk )k ≤
X m m
p̄I (tk+1 ) = p̄I (tk ) + δs β̄ āij (w̄I (tk ) − w̄J (tk )), (6a) J=1
m
J=1
(12)
J=1 1 X
kr̄I (tk ) − x̄I (tk )k
w̄I (tk ) = r̄I (tk ) − p̄I (tk ). (6b) m
J=1

where w̄I , ∀I ∈ {1, .., m} is the swarm average estimation and then, using the previous result:
and p̄I (0) = 0. 1 X
m
1 X
m

Theorem 2: (Distributed consensus for multi-swarm prob- lim k r̄I (tk ) − x̄I (tk )k ≤
k→∞ m m
J=1 J=1
lem) m (13)
1 X γ(∞)δ
Under protocol Eq.(5), if assumption 1 holds, then, sys-
tem (6) achieves dynamic swarm average consensus with a m βλJ,2
J=1
bounded error, ē ∈ R>0 , such that: Considering the first part of Eq. (8) and applying The-
lim kw̄I (tk ) − x̄S (tk )k ≤ ē orem 1 to system (6), with r̄I (tk ) finite ∀k ∈ N, we can
k→∞
γ̄(∞)δ 1 Pm γ(∞)δ (7) write:
ē = + <∞ m
β̄λ2 m J=1
βλJ,2 1 X γ̄(∞)δ
lim kw̄I (tk ) − r̄J (tk )k ≤ (14)
k→∞ m β̄λ2
with δ ∈ (0, β −1 (dmax
G )
−1
) ∩ (0, β̄ −1 (dmax )−1 ), J=1
1 with γ̄ defined as:
sup k(In − 1n 1Tn )(r(tk̄+1 ) − r(tk̄ ))k = γ(tk ) < ∞,
n 1
k̄∈Z≥k sup k(In − 1n 1Tn )(r̄I (tk̄+1 )−r̄I (tk̄ ))k = γ̄(tk ) < ∞.
and k̄∈Z≥k n
1
sup k(In − 1n 1Tn )(r̄I (tk̄+1 ) − r̄I (tk̄ ))k = γ̄(tk ) < ∞ Then, for k → ∞, Eq.(8) becomes:
k̄∈Z≥k n
m
γ̄(∞)δ 1 X γ(∞)δ
Proof: lim kw̄I (tk ) − x̄S (tk )k ≤ +
k→∞ β̄λ2 m βλJ,2
Let consider kw̄I (tk ) − x̄S (tk )k with x̄S (tk ) = J=1
1 Pm (15)
x̄I (tk ) γ̄(∞)δ 1 Pm γ(∞)δ
m J=1 Thus, denoting ē = + < ∞, we
β̄λ2 m J=1 βλJ,2
1 Pm have a finite bounded error, which concludes the proof.
kw̄I (tk ) − J=1 x̄I (tk )k =
m
m m m Remark 2: In particular, we observe that the error depends
1 X 1 X 1 X
kw̄I (tk ) − r̄I (tk ) + r̄I (tk ) − x̄I (tk )k ≤ on the connectivity of the different digraphs. Also, if the
m J=1 m J=1 m J=1
m m m reference signals follow the same dynamics (γ(tk ) → 0, for
1 X 1 X 1 X k > k̄ which implies γ̄(tk ) → 0), then, the error tends to
kw̄I (tk ) − r̄I (tk )k + k r̄I (tk ) − x̄I (tk )k
m J=1 m J=1 m J=1 zero as pointed in [13] and lim w̄I (tk ) = x̄S (tk ), ∀I ∈
(8) k→∞
{1, .., m} .
Applying Theorem 1 to system (6), we obtain for each B. Dynamic Group Information consensus with switching
swarm: communicating agents
nI
1 X γ(∞)δ In this section, we consider that the communicating agents
lim kwIi (tk ) − rj (tk )k ≤ (9)
k→∞ nI j=1 I βλI,2 can switch among the agents of their own swarm. If the
communication graph between the swarms is preserved,
1 protocol (5)-(6) introduces an error due to the initialization
with sup k(InI − 1n 1T )(rI (tk̄+1 ) − rI (tk̄ ))k =
k̄∈Z≥k n I I nI of the communicating agent’s state and fails to follow the
γ(tk ) < ∞. swarm average.

1224
 Consequently, protocol (5)-(6) is modified, and a third Let consider the piece-wise continuous input signal, ŵIv
leader/follower consensus is introduced and run among the composed of the estimated Ith -swarm average of agents s
agents in order to propagate the group information to every and t such as:
agent of the swarm, similar to what can be done for an open (
ŵIs t < tk0 ,
multi-agent system [14]. ŵIv (t) = (20)
Let consider a switching signal σ(tk ), such as σ(tk ) : ŵIt + ∆st (t
pI k0 ) t ≥ tk0 .
N → P with P the finite set of all possible combinations of Now, let consider a virtual communicating agent for the
communicating agents. In particular, |P| = ΠmI=1 nI I th swarm which corresponds to agent s for t < tk0 and
Assumption 2: Let Nσ (tk ) denotes the number of switch- to agent t for t ≥ tk0 . The objective is to demonstrate that
ings of σ(tk ). Then, there exists N = Nσ(∞) < ∞ ∈ N the agent switching is equivalent to keep the same agent but
such that Nσ → Nσ(∞) with a change in its reference signal.
The estimation of the swarm average by the virtual agent
Thus, for δp ∈ (0, β̂ −1 (dmax
G )
−1
), where β̂ ∈ R>0 and at t = tk0 +1
∀I ∈ {1, .., m} and ∀i ∈ {1, .., nI }\{l} with {l(tk ) = m
lI (tk )} the communicating agent index at time tk , we
X
p̄I (tk0 +1 ) = p̄I (tk0 ) + δ β̄ āij (w̄I (tk0 ) − w̄J (tk0 )),
implement: J=1
(21a)
N
X w̄I (tk0 +1 ) = r̄I (tk0 +1 ) − p̄I (tk0 +1 ). (21b)
p̂iI (tk+1 ) = p̂iI (tk ) + δp β̂ aIij (ŵIi (tk ) − ŵIj (tk )), (16a) Using Eq. (19)
j=1
p̄I (tk0 +1 ) = p̄I (t−
kP ) + ∆st
pI (tk0 )
ŵIi (tk ) = r̂iI (tk ) − p̂iI (tk ), (16b) 0
m
+δβ J=1 āij (w̄I (tk0 ) − w̄J (tk0 )).
(22)
with r̂iI (tk ) = wIi (tk ), p̂iI (0) = 0 and
Let make the change of coordinates p̄∗I = p̄I − ∆st pI k0 )
(t
Then we have
p̂lI (tk+1 ) = p̂lI (tk ), (16c) Pm
p̄∗I (tk0 +1 ) = p̄I (t−
k0 ) + δβ J=1 āij (w̄I (tk0 ) − w̄J (tk0 ))
ŵIl (tk ) = w̄I (tk ) − p̂lI (tk ). (16d) (23a)
w̄I (tk0 +1 ) = r̄I (tk0 +1 ) − p̄∗I (t− st
k0 ) − ∆pI (tk0 )
Theorem 3: (Distributed consensus for multi-swarm prob- ∗ − (23b)
= (r̄I (tk0 +1 ) − ∆stpI (tk0 )) − p̄I (tk0 )
lem with switching communicating agent)
If assumptions 1 and 2 hold, and under protocol defined by We can see that Eq.(23) is equivalent to keep agent s as
Eq.(5) and (16), system (6) achieves dynamic swarm average the communicating agent following the reference signal (20)
consensus with a bounded error, e ∈ R>0 , such that: including the additional constant error, ∆st
pI (tk0 ), after tk0 .
lim kw̄I (tk ) − x̄S (tk )k ≤ e This error being present in the reference signal itself for
k→∞
γ̄(∞)δ 1 Pm γ(∞)δ 1 PN σ(j) tk ≥ tk0 , the dynamic swarm average is also modified as
with e ≤ + J=1 + ∆pI (tkj ) followed :
β̄λ2 m βλJ,2 m j=1
(17)
m
1 X ∆st
pI (tk0 )
x̄∗S (tk ) = x̄I (tk ) + (24)
where δ ∈ (0, β −1 (dmax
G )
−1
) ∩ (0, β̂ −1 (dmax
G )
−1
) ∩ m m
−1 max −1 I=1
(0, β̄ (d
), )
1 Thus, applying Theorem 2 for k ≥ tk0 , we have
sup k(In − 1n 1Tn )(r(tk̄+1 ) − r(tk̄ ))k = γ(tk ) < ∞,
k̄∈Z≥k n
1 lim kw̄I (tk ) − x̄∗S (tk )k ≤ ē (25)
sup k(In − 1n 1Tn )(r̄I (tk̄+1 ) − r̄I (tk̄ ))k = γ̄(tk ) < ∞, k→∞
k̄∈Z≥k n
And we finally have:
σ(j)
and ∆pI (tkj ) < ∞ represents the internal state error due
lim kw̄I (tk ) − x̄∗S (tk )k
to the switching σ(j) at time tkj . k→∞
Proof: ∆st
pI (tk0 )
= lim kw̄I (tk ) − x̄S (tk ) + k (26)
Let consider a switching at time t+ th
k0 of the I -swarm k→∞ m
st
such that the communicating agent s loses its communication ∆pI (tk0 )
≤ kw̄I (tk ) − x̄S (tk )k +
function to the benefit of agent t. m
Thus, we have: Extending this case to the finite number of switchings
w̄I (t− s −
p̄I (t+ t − following assumption 2, the error can be added for each
k0 ) = wI (tk0 ) k0 ) = pI (tk0 )
+ + (18) switching, which guarantees a bounded error and thus con-
w̄I (tk0 ) = ŵIt (tk0 ) p̄I (tk0 ) = p̂tI (tk0 )
cludes the proof.
For this agent, we also define:
It is interesting to notice that ∆pI depends on the parame-
−
p̄I (t+ st
k0 ) − p̄I (tk0 ) = ∆pI (tk0 ). (19) ters β̂ and δp from Eq. (16), which can affect the convergence

1225
speed as well as the error of the consensus to propagate the
30
group information. Then, reducing this local error directly
decays the effect of the switchings as it will be shown in the
20
next section.

10
V. SIMULATIONS

error averages
To illustrate our theoretical solutions, let consider a MSS 0
of 11 agents partitioned into 3 swarms as presented Fig. 1.
The agents use a ring configuration to communicate at -10
the intra-swarm level, while the communicating agents can
all exchange their group information. We consider that the
-20
communicating agents of swarm II and swarm III change
respectively at t = 2s from agent 5 to agent 6 and t =
-30
20s from agent 6 to agent 5 and agent 8 to agent 11. The 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
communication frequencies at the intra and inter-swarm level time (s)

are equal with δ = δa = δs = δp = 0.1s.

Fig. 3. Estimation error of the communicating agents using protocol (5-6)
The simulated agent positions follow with switchings at t = 2s and t = 20s
the signal u(t) with u(0) = u0 =
[5, 3, 0.5, −0.5, 27, 26.5, 24.5, −24, −25, −26, −29]T and
70
u̇ = 2(sin(0.1t) + H(t − 10)) with H(t) the Heaviside
function. 60

Simulations are computed for both protocols and 2 values

swarm and multi-swarm averages

50
of β̂ for the second protocol i.e. for β̂ = 1 and for β̂ = 10.
40

30
70

60 20

10
swarm and multi-swarm averages

50

40 0

30 -10

20 -20

10 -30
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
0 time (s)

-10
Fig. 4. Swarm average estimation of the communicating agents using
-20 protocol (5-6 and 16) and β̂ = 1 with switchings at t = 2s and t = 20s

-30
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
time (s) 30

Fig. 2. Swarm average estimation of the communicating agents using 20

protocol (5-6) and β̂ = 1. The communicating agents switch at t = 2s and
t = 20s. Plain lines represents the inter-swarm average estimations, dotted
lines show the intra-swarm averages, while the ’.-’ thick line is the actual 10
error averages

swarm average.

0
We can see from Fig. 2 and Fig. 3, that the protocol (5-
6) successfully tracks the multi-swarm average. However,
-10
constant errors are introduced at each switching of the
communicating agents.
-20
Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 illustrate the benefit of introducing
Eq. (16). Indeed, if an error is still present after t = 2s
due to transient time, this error is smaller than the previous -30
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
simulation and no significant error is added after the second time (s)
agent switching at t = 20s (when algorithm (16) has
converged and the agents can successfully track the group Fig. 5. Estimation error of the communicating agents using protocol (5-6
and 16) with switchings at t = 2s and t = 20s
information). Fig. 6 shows the difference signals estimated

1226
 70
exchange the group information. The solution is proposed for
60 strongly connected and weighted-balanced graph in discrete
50 time. We show that the communicating agents reach the
swarm average consensus with a bounded error. The case of
40
Average estimations

fixed communicating agents is first explored and extended to

30 switching communicating agents. Finally, numerical simula-
20 tions demonstrate the effectiveness of our solutions and point
10
out the possibilities for tuning the algorithm by a careful
selection of the sampling times and parameters β.
0
R EFERENCES
-10
[1] A. Jadbabaie, J. Lin, and A. S. Morse, “Coordination of groups
-20
of mobile autonomous agents using nearest neighbor rules,” IEEE
-30
Transactions on automatic control, vol. 48, no. 6, pp. 988–1001, 2003.
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 [2] R. Olfati-Saber and R. M. Murray, “Consensus problems in networks
time (s) of agents with switching topology and time-delays,” IEEE Transac-
tions on automatic control, vol. 49, no. 9, pp. 1520–1533, 2004.
Fig. 6. Swarm average estimation using protocol (5-6 and 16) and β̂ = 1 [3] R. Olfati-Saber, J. A. Fax, and R. M. Murray, “Consensus and
with switchings at t = 2s and t = 20s cooperation in networked multi-agent systems,” Proceedings of the
IEEE, vol. 95, no. 1, pp. 215–233, 2007.
[4] A. Tahir, J. Böling, M.-H. Haghbayan, H. T. Toivonen, and J. Plosila,
70 “Swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles—a survey,” Journal of Indus-
trial Information Integration, vol. 16, p. 100106, 2019.
60
[5] W. Ren, “Formation keeping and attitude alignment for multiple
spacecraft through local interactions,” Journal of Guidance, Control,
swarm and multi-swarm averages

50
40
30
20
10
0 Conference on Decision and Control (CDC). IEEE, 2015, pp. 418–
-10
-20
-30
0 5 10 15 20
time (s)
Fig. 7. Swarm average estimation of the communicating agents using
protocol (5-6 and 16) and β̂ = 10 with switchings at t = 2s and t = 20s
by protocol (5-6 and 16) and compare to the tracked swarm
average.
As expected, we also observe Fig. 7 that the choice
of β̂ directly influences the permanent error following a
switching of communicating agent. In particular, we can
notice that the first switching appeared after the convergence
of algorithm (16), and the error is significantly reduced. If
two values of the parameter β̂ have been selected to demon-
strate the influence on the tracking error, similar simulations
could have been performed on the sampling times of the 3
algorithms. This study has been omitted due to the lack of
space.
VI. CONCLUSION
This paper presents two distributed protocols to solve the
swarm average consensus problem for multi-swarm systems.
In our scheme, the agents can communicate with each other
inside each swarm. However, the communication between the
swarms is limited to a single agent per swarm and can only
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