Duality and Stability in Complex Multiagent State-Dependent Network Dynamics
Abstract
Despite significant progress on stability analysis of conventional multiagent networked systems with weakly coupled state-network dynamics, most of the existing results have shortcomings in addressing multiagent systems with highly coupled state-network dynamics. Motivated by numerous applications of such dynamics, in our previous work [1], we initiated a new direction for stability analysis of such systems that uses a sequential optimization framework. Building upon that, in this paper, we extend our results by providing another angle on multiagent network dynamics from a duality perspective, which allows us to view the network structure as dual variables of a constrained nonlinear program. Leveraging that idea, we show that the evolution of the coupled state-network multiagent dynamics can be viewed as iterates of a primal-dual algorithm for a static constrained optimization/saddle-point problem. This view bridges the Lyapunov stability of state-dependent network dynamics and frequently used optimization techniques such as block coordinated descent, mirror descent, the Newton method, and the subgradient method. As a result, we develop a systematic framework for analyzing the Lyapunov stability of state-dependent network dynamics using techniques from nonlinear optimization. Finally, we support our theoretical results through numerical simulations from social science.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1910.14081,
title = {Duality and Stability in Complex Multiagent State-Dependent Network Dynamics},
author = {S. Rasoul Etesami},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.14081},
year = {2020}
}