Tutorial on dynamic average consensus: the problem, its applications,\n and the algorithms

Abstract

This paper considers the problem of dynamic average consensus algorithm\ndesign for a group of communicating agents. This problem consists of designing\na distributed algorithm that enables a group of agents with communication and\ncomputation capabilities to use local interactions to track the average of\nlocally time-varying reference signals at each agent. The objective of this\narticle is to provide an overview of the dynamic average consensus problem that\nserves as a comprehensive introduction to the problem definition, its\napplications, and the distributed methods available to solve them. Our primary\nintention, rather than providing a full account of all the available\nliterature, is to introduce the reader, in a tutorial fashion, to the main\nideas behind dynamic average consensus algorithms, the performance trade-offs\nconsidered in their design, and the requirements needed for their analysis and\nconvergence guarantees.