Stochastic Stability of Event-triggered Anytime Control

We investigate control of a non-linear process when communication and processing capabilities are limited. The sensor communicates with a controller node through an erasure channel which introduces i.i.d. packet dropouts. Processor availability for control is random and, at times, insufficient to calculate plant inputs. To make efficient use of communication and processing resources, the sensor only transmits when the plant state lies outside a bounded target set. Control calculations are triggered by the received data. If a plant state measurement is successfully received and while the processor is available for control, the algorithm recursively calculates a sequence of tentative plant inputs, which are stored in a buffer for potential future use. This safeguards for time-steps when the processor is unavailable for control. We derive sufficient conditions on system parameters for stochastic stability of the closed loop and illustrate performance gains through numerical studies.Comment: IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, under revie

Data Transmission Over Networks for Estimation and Control

We consider the problem of controlling a linear time invariant process when the controller is located at a location remote from where the sensor measurements are being generated. The communication from the sensor to the controller is supported by a communication network with arbitrary topology composed of analog erasure channels. Using a separation principle, we prove that the optimal linear-quadratic-Gaussian (LQG) controller consists of an LQ optimal regulator along with an estimator that estimates the state of the process across the communication network. We then determine the optimal information processing strategy that should be followed by each node in the network so that the estimator is able to compute the best possible estimate in the minimum mean squared error sense. The algorithm is optimal for any packet-dropping process and at every time step, even though it is recursive and hence requires a constant amount of memory, processing and transmission at every node in the network per time step. For the case when the packet drop processes are memoryless and independent across links, we analyze the stability properties and the performance of the closed loop system. The algorithm is an attempt to escape the viewpoint of treating a network of communication links as a single end-to-end link with the probability of successful transmission determined by some measure of the reliability of the network

Adaptive Controller Placement for Wireless Sensor-Actuator Networks with Erasure Channels

Wireless sensor-actuator networks offer flexibility for control design. One novel element which may arise in networks with multiple nodes is that the role of some nodes does not need to be fixed. In particular, there is no need to pre-allocate which nodes assume controller functions and which ones merely relay data. We present a flexible architecture for networked control using multiple nodes connected in series over analog erasure channels without acknowledgments. The control architecture proposed adapts to changes in network conditions, by allowing the role played by individual nodes to depend upon transmission outcomes. We adopt stochastic models for transmission outcomes and characterize the distribution of controller location and the covariance of system states. Simulation results illustrate that the proposed architecture has the potential to give better performance than limiting control calculations to be carried out at a fixed node.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, to be published in Automatic