Sufficient Condition on Bipartite Consensus of Weakly Connected Matrix-weighted Networks

Abstract: Recent advances in bipartite consensus on matrix-weighted networks, where agents are divided into two disjoint sets with those in the same set agreeing on a certain value and those in different sets converging to opposite values, have highlighted its potential applications across various fields. Traditional approaches often depend on the existence of a positive-negative spanning tree in matrix-weighted networks to achieve bipartite consensus, which greatly restricts the use of these approaches in engineering applications. This study relaxes that assumption by allowing weak connectivity within the network, where paths can be weighted by semidefinite matrices. By analyzing the algebraic constraints imposed by positive-negative trees and semidefinite paths, we derive new sufficient conditions for achieving bipartite consensus. Our findings are validated by numerical simulations.