eprintid: 10192820 rev_number: 15 eprint_status: archive userid: 699 dir: disk0/10/19/28/20 datestamp: 2024-05-29 14:13:11 lastmod: 2025-03-04 15:55:05 status_changed: 2024-05-29 14:13:11 type: article metadata_visibility: show sword_depositor: 699 creators_name: Fedele, Giuseppe creators_name: D’Alfonso, Luigi creators_name: Chen, Boli title: A matching problem between two decoupled multi-agent systems with reference tracking capabilities ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B04 divisions: C05 divisions: F46 keywords: Multi-agent systems; Matching problem; Emergent behavior; Trajectory tracking and path following; Cooperative control note: Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/). abstract: Multi-agent systems have emerged as the central framework in which autonomous agents are seamlessly coordinated and co-operate to address complex challenges. The area of matching between multiple swarms has attracted considerable attention, especially in critical domains such as transport, logistics and robotics, where coordination algorithms play an essential role in resource allocation, system performance and overall functionality. This paper addresses the challenges that arise in matching two swarms of agents, addressing issues related to scalability, dynamic environments, and privacy. The proposed solution, based on a theoretical study of emergent behavior in multi-agent systems, revolves around the design of a control law that aims to ensure the convergence of the agents’ positions to a predefined region where the steady-state values remain independent of the agents’ initial conditions. This independence reflects a collective behavior resulting from local interactions between the agents and their engagement with the environment. This property shows that even completely independent swarms can reach a coupled consensus within a predefined region, even in the absence of direct communication. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is supported by numerical simulations and experimental results. date: 2025-03 date_type: published publisher: Elsevier official_url: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.automatica.2024.112047 oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 2278825 doi: 10.1016/j.automatica.2024.112047 lyricists_name: Chen, Boli lyricists_id: BCHEB76 actors_name: Chen, Boli actors_id: BCHEB76 actors_role: owner funding_acknowledgements: IES\R2\212041 [Royal Society] full_text_status: public publication: Automatica volume: 173 article_number: 112047 issn: 0005-1098 citation: Fedele, Giuseppe; D’Alfonso, Luigi; Chen, Boli; (2025) A matching problem between two decoupled multi-agent systems with reference tracking capabilities. Automatica , 173 , Article 112047. 10.1016/j.automatica.2024.112047 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.automatica.2024.112047>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10192820/1/Chen_1-s2.0-S0005109824005405-main.pdf