Our new paper describes the interesting phenomenon that networks with consensus dynamics may lose stability if they grow beyond some finite size. This scale fragility arises due to i) locality (small neighborhoods), ii) relative feedback, iii) high-order dynamics (nodes are triple-integrators or higher). In second-order consensus, corresponding to vehicle formation dynamics, the same scale fragility arises in certain directed networks that are, in some sense, cyclic.
Read more in the ArXiv preprint.
Emma Tegling 