Exploiting nodes symmetries to control synchronization and consensus patterns in multiagent systems

Abstract: We present new conditions to obtain synchronization and consensus patterns in complex network systems. The key idea is to exploit symmetries of the nodes' vector fields to induce a desired synchronization/consensus pattern, where nodes are clustered in different groups each converging towards a different synchronized evolution. We show that the new conditions we present offer a systematic methodology to design a distributed network controller able to drive a network of interest towards a desired synchronization/consensus pattern.