Time-Varying Distributed Optimization for A Class of Stochastic Multi-Agent Systems

Abstract

Distributed optimization problems have received much attention due to their privacy preservation, parallel computation, less communication, and strong robustness. This paper presents and studies the time-varying distributed optimization problem for a class of stochastic multi-agent systems for the first time. For this, we initially propose a protocol in the centralized case that allows the tracking error of the agent with respect to the optimal trajectory to be exponentially ultimately bounded in a mean-square sense by stochastic Lyapunov theory. We then generalize this to the distributed case. Therein, the global variable can be accurately estimated in a fixed-time by our proposed estimator. Based on this estimator, we design a new distributed protocol, and the results demonstrate that the tracking error of all agents with respect to the optimal trajectory is exponentially ultimately bound in a mean-square sense by stochastic Lyapunov theory. Finally, simulation experiments are conducted to validate the findings.