15th Triennial World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control
  Barcelona, 21–26 July 2002 
GRAPH LAPLACIANS AND STABILIZATION OF VEHICLE FORMATIONS
J. Alexander Fax*,1 Richard M. Murray**
* Northrop Grumman Corp.
Navigation Systems Division
Woodland Hills, CA 91367
** Engineering and Applied Science
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA 91125

Control of vehicle formations has emerged as a topic of significant interest to the controls community. In this paper, we merge tools from graph theory and control theory to derive stability criteria for vehicle formations. The interconnection between vehicles (i.e., which vehicles are sensed by other vehicles) is modeled as a graph, and the eigenvalues of the Laplacian matrix of the graph are used in stating a Nyquist-like stability criterion. The relationship between the location of the Laplacian eigenvalues and the graph structure is used to identify desirable and undesirable formation interconnection topologies.
Keywords: decentralized control, graph theory, stability criteria, vehicles

1Corresponding Address: faxa@littongcs.com

E-mail: fax@cds.caltech.edu
Session slot T-Th-M14: Motion Control Design/Area code 2a : Control Design