  In this paper we explore the relationship between dual decomposition and the
consensus-based method for distributed optimization. The relationship is
developed by examining the similarities between the two approaches and their
relationship to gradient-based constrained optimization. By formulating each
algorithm in continuous-time, it is seen that both approaches use a gradient
method for optimization with one using a proportional control term and the
other using an integral control term to drive the system to the constraint set.
Therefore, a significant contribution of this paper is to combine these methods
to develop a continuous-time proportional-integral distributed optimization
method. Furthermore, we establish convergence using Lyapunov stability
techniques and utilizing properties from the network structure of the
multi-agent system.
