Synchronization Error Elimination for Heterogeneous Discrete-Time Multi-Agent Systems: A Reinforcement Learning Design Approach

This paper proposes a novel reinforcement learning approach to solve the optimal output synchronization problem for discrete-time heterogeneous multi-agent systems. Different from existing learning methods, the optimal control protocol is obtained to guarantee zero synchronization error by solving the augmented algebraic Riccati equations (AREs). The proposed adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) method can stabilize the output synchronization error and solve the output regulator equations implicitly. To eliminate the dependency on information of system dynamics, an online Q-function-based policy iteration (PI) algorithm is developed. Finally, a numerical example is provided to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed ADP over traditional ADP in terms of synchronization performance.