SYSTEMS & CONTROL | RESEARCH ARTICLE Group consensus in generic linear multi-agent systems with inter-group non-identical inputs

1* Abstract: This paper studies the group consensus problem for generic linear multi-agent systems under directed information flow. External adapted inputs are introduced to realize the intra-group synchronization as well as the inter-group separation. Without imposing complicated algebraic criteria or restrictive graphic conditions on the interaction topology, we show that the group consensus can be achieved by designing appropriate gains given any magnitude of the coupling strengths among the agents. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the availability of our results.