Output group consensus for heterogeneous linear multi-agent systems communicating over switching topology

![CDATA[In this paper, we aim to investigate the output group consensus problem for a switching network of heterogeneous linear systems such that outputs of the agents synchronize with each other in every cluster. From the internal model principle perspective, a necessary condition is first derived in terms of the system dynamics. With this necessary condition, a dynamic controller is then designed to solve the output group consensus problem in two steps, namely consensus of reference generators and output tracking for each agent. It is obtained that if every possible underlying topology of each cluster contains a directed spanning tree, then group consensus for the reference generators can be realized with sufficiently strong intra-cluster coupling strength. An appropriate controller is then designed to force the output of each agent to track the output of the reference generators. A simulation example is given at last to validate our theoretical findings.]]