  This paper investigates the consensus problem of general linear multi-agent
systems under the framework of optimization. A novel distributed receding
horizon control (RHC) strategy for consensus is proposed. We show that the
consensus protocol generated by the unconstrained distributed RHC can be
expressed in an explicit form. Based on the resulting consensus protocol the
necessary and sufficient conditions for ensuring consensus are developed.
Furthermore, we specify more detailed consensus conditions for multi-agent
system with general and one-dimensional linear dynamics depending on the
difference Riccati equations (DREs), respectively. Finally, two case studies
verify the proposed scheme and the corresponding theoretical results.
