Synchronization in dynamical systems coupled via multiple directed networks

Abstract: We study synchronization and consensus in a group of dynamical systems coupled via multiple directed networks. We show that even though the coupling in a single network may not be sufficient to synchronize the systems, combination of multiple networks can contribute to synchronization. We illustrate how the effectiveness of a collection of networks to synchronize the coupled systems depends on the graph topology. In particular, we show that if the graph sum is a directed graph whose reversal contains a spanning directed tree, then the network synchronizes if the coupling is strong enough. This is intuitive as there is a root node that influence every other node via a set of edges where each edge in the set is in one of the networks.