ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews a passivity-based approach for the design and analysis of networked nonlinear systems. This approach exploits the structure of the network and breaks up the design and analysis procedures into two levels: At the network level, one represents the components with input/output properties, such as passivity and other forms of dissipativity, as abstractions of their complex dynamic models and determines which input/output properties guarantee stability and other desirable properties for the given network structure. This means that the study of the network does not rely on detailed knowledge of the components and does not require the components to be homogeneous. At the component level, one studies the individual dynamic models and verifies or assigns appropriate input/output properties without relying on further knowledge of the network.
