Decentralized Continuification Control of Multi-Agent Systems via Distributed Density Estimation

This letter introduces a novel decentralized implementation of a continuification-based strategy to control the density of large-scale multi-agent systems. While continuification methods effectively address micro-to-macro control problems by reformulating ordinary/stochastic differential equations (ODEs/SDEs) agent-based models into more tractable partial differential equations (PDEs), they traditionally require centralized knowledge of macroscopic state observables. We overcome this limitation by developing a distributed density estimation framework that combines kernel density estimation with PI consensus dynamics. Our approach enables agents to compute local density estimates and derive local control actions using only information from neighboring agents in a communication network. Numerical validations across multiple scenarios—including regulation, tracking, and time-varying communication topologies—confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach. They also convincingly demonstrate that our decentralized implementation achieves performance comparable to centralized approaches while enhancing reliability and practical applicability.