Robust Controller for Delays and Packet Dropout Avoidance in Solar-Power Wireless Network

Solar Wireless Networked Control Systems (SWNCS) are a style of distributed control systems where sensors, actuators, and controllers are interconnected via a wireless communication network. This system setup has the benefit of low cost, flexibility, low weight, no wiring and simplicity of system diagnoses and maintenance. However, it also unavoidably calls some wireless network time delays and packet dropout into the design procedure. Solar lighting system offers a clean environment, therefore able to continue for a long period. SWNCS also offers multi Service infrastructure solution for both developed and undeveloped countries. The system provides wireless controller lighting, wireless communications network (WI-FI/WIMAX), CCTV surveillance, and wireless sensor for weather measurement which are all powered by solar energy

A non-uniform predictor-observer for a networked control system

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12555-011-0621-5This paper presents a Non-Uniform Predictor-Observer (NUPO) based control approach in order to deal with two of the main problems related to Networked Control Systems (NCS) or Sensor Networks (SN): time-varying delays and packet loss. In addition, if these delays are longer than the sampling period, the packet disordering phenomenon can appear. Due to these issues, a (scarce) nonuniform, delayed measurement signal could be received by the controller. But including the NUPO proposal in the control system, the delay will be compensated by the prediction stage, and the nonavailable data will be reconstructed by the observer stage. So, a delay-free, uniformly sampled controller design can be adopted. To ensure stability, the predictor must satisfy a feasibility problem based on a time-varying delay-dependent condition expressed in terms of Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMI). Some aspects like the relation between network delay and robustness/performance trade-off are empirically studied. A simulation example shows the benefits (robustness and control performance improvement) of the NUPO approach by comparison to another similar proposal. © ICROS, KIEE and Springer 2011.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologia Projects DPI2008-06737-C02-01 and DPI2009-14744-C03-03, by Generalitat Valenciana Project GV/2010/018, by Universidad Politecnica de Valencia Project PAID06-08.Cuenca Lacruz, ÁM.; García Gil, PJ.; Albertos Pérez, P.; Salt Llobregat, JJ. (2011). A non-uniform predictor-observer for a networked control system. International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems. 9(6):1194-1202. doi:10.1007/s12555-011-0621-5S1194120296K. Ogata, Discrete-time Control Systems, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA, 1987.Y. Tipsuwan and M. Chow, “Control methodologies in networked control systems,” Control Eng. 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Sastry, “Tracking and coordination of multiple agents using sensor networks: System design, algorithms and experiments,” Proc. of the IEEE, vol. 95, no. 1, pp. 234–254, 2007.M. Moayedi, Y. Foo, and Y. Soh, “Optimal and suboptimal minimum-variance filtering in networked systems with mixed uncertainties of random sensor delays, packet dropouts and missing measurements,” Int. J. Control, Autom., and Syst., vol. 8, no. 6, pp. 1179–1188, 2010.W. Zhang, M. Branicky, and S. Phillips, “Stability of networked control systems,” IEEE Control Syst. Mag., vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 84–99, 2001.J. Hespanha, P. Naghshtabrizi, and Y. Xu, “A survey of recent results in networked control systems,” Proc. of the IEEE, vol. 95, no. 1, pp. 138–162, 2007.J. Baillieul and P. Antsaklis, “Control and communication challenges in networked real-time systems,” Proc. of the IEEE, vol. 95, no. 1, pp. 9–28, 2007.P. Garcia, P. Castillo, R. Lozano, and P. 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Networked Control System Design and Parameter Estimation

Networked control systems (NCSs) are a kind of distributed control systems in which the data between control components are exchanged via communication networks. Because of the attractive advantages of NCSs such as reduced system wiring, low weight, and ease of system diagnosis and maintenance, the research on NCSs has received much attention in recent years. The first part (Chapter 2 - Chapter 4) of the thesis is devoted to designing new controllers for NCSs by incorporating the network-induced delays. The thesis also conducts research on filtering of multirate systems and identification of Hammerstein systems in the second part (Chapter 5 - Chapter 6). Network-induced delays exist in both sensor-to-controller (S-C) and controller-to-actuator (C-A) links. A novel two-mode-dependent control scheme is proposed, in which the to-be-designed controller depends on both S-C and C-A delays. The resulting closed-loop system is a special jump linear system. Then, the conditions for stochastic stability are obtained in terms of a set of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) with nonconvex constraints, which can be efficiently solved by a sequential LMI optimization algorithm. Further, the control synthesis problem for the NCSs is considered. The definitions of H₂ and H∞ norms for the special system are first proposed. Also, the plant uncertainties are considered in the design. Finally, the robust mixed H₂/H∞ control problem is solved under the framework of LMIs. To compensate for both S-C and C-A delays modeled by Markov chains, the generalized predictive control method is modified to choose certain predicted future control signal as the current control effort on the actuator node, whenever the control signal is delayed. Further, stability criteria in terms of LMIs are provided to check the system stability. The proposed method is also tested on an experimental hydraulic position control system. Multirate systems exist in many practical applications where different sampling rates co-exist in the same system. The l₂-l∞ filtering problem for multirate systems is considered in the thesis. By using the lifting technique, the system is first transformed to a linear time-invariant one, and then the filter design is formulated as an optimization problem which can be solved by using LMI techniques. Hammerstein model consists of a static nonlinear block followed in series by a linear dynamic system, which can find many applications in different areas. New switching sequences to handle the two-segment nonlinearities are proposed in this thesis. This leads to less parameters to be estimated and thus reduces the computational cost. Further, a stochastic gradient algorithm based on the idea of replacing the unmeasurable terms with their estimates is developed to identify the Hammerstein model with two-segment nonlinearities. Finally, several open problems are listed as the future research directions

Delay-independent dual-rate PID controller for a packet-based networked control system

[EN] In this paper, a novel delay-independent control structure for a networked control system (NCS) is proposed, where packet-based control strategies with predictor-based and dual-rate control techniques are integrated. The control solution is able to cope with some networked communication problems such as time-varying delays, packet dropouts and packet disorder. In addition, the proposed approach enables to reduce network load, and usage of connected devices, while maintaining a satisfactory control performance. As a delay-independent control solution, no network-induced delay measurement is needed for controller implementation. In addition, the control scheme is applicable to open-loop unstable plants. Control system stability is ensured in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Simulation results show the main benefits of the control approach, which are experimentally validated by means of a Cartesian-robot-based test-bed platform. (C) 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.This work is funded by European Commission as part of Project H2020-SEC-2016-2017, Topic: SEC-20-BES-2016 Id: 740736 C2 Advanced Multi-domain Environment and Live Observation Technologies (CAMELOT). Part WP5 supported by Tekever ASDS, Thales Research & Technology, Viasat Antenna Systems, Universitat Politècnica de València, Fundação da Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Ministério da Defesa Nacional Marinha Portuguesa, Ministério da Administração Interna Guarda Nacional Republicana.Alcaina-Acosta, JJ.; Cuenca, Á.; Salt Llobregat, JJ.; Casanova Calvo, V.; Pizá, R. (2019). Delay-independent dual-rate PID controller for a packet-based networked control system. Information Sciences. 484:27-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ins.2019.01.059S274348

Multi-objective optimization framework for networked predictive controller design

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.Networked Control Systems (NCSs) often suffer from random packet dropouts which deteriorate overall system's stability and performance. To handle the ill effects of random packet losses in feedback control systems, closed over communication network, a state feedback controller with predictive gains has been designed. To achieve improved performance, an optimization based controller design framework has been proposed in this paper with Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI) constraints, to ensure guaranteed stability. Different conflicting objective functions have been optimized with Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II). The methodology proposed in this paper not only gives guaranteed closed loop stability in the sense of Lyapunov, even in the presence of random packet losses, but also gives an optimization trade-off between two conflicting time domain control objectives

Dynamics analysis and integrated design of real-time control systems

Real-time control systems are widely deployed in many applications. Theory and practice for the design and deployment of real-time control systems have evolved significantly. From the design perspective, control strategy development has been the focus of the research in the control community. In order to develop good control strategies, process modelling and analysis have been investigated for decades, and stability analysis and model-based control have been heavily studied in the literature. From the implementation perspective, real-time control systems require timeliness and predictable timing behaviour in addition to logical correctness, and a real-time control system may behave very differently with different software implementations of the control strategies on a digital controller, which typically has limited computing resources. Most current research activities on software implementations concentrate on various scheduling methodologies to ensure the schedulability of multiple control tasks in constrained environments. Recently, more and more real-time control systems are implemented over data networks, leading to increasing interest worldwide in the design and implementation of networked control systems (NCS). Major research activities in NCS include control-oriented and scheduling-oriented investigations. In spite of significant progress in the research and development of real-time control systems, major difficulties exist in the state of the art. A key issue is the lack of integrated design for control development and its software implementation. For control design, the model-based control technique, the current focus of control research, does not work when a good process model is not available or is too complicated for control design. For control implementation on digital controllers running multiple tasks, the system schedulability is essential but is not enough; the ultimate objective of satisfactory quality-of-control (QoC) performance has not been addressed directly. For networked control, the majority of the control-oriented investigations are based on two unrealistic assumptions about the network induced delay. The scheduling-oriented research focuses on schedulability and does not directly link to the overall QoC of the system. General solutions with direct QoC consideration from the network perspective to the challenging problems of network delay and packet dropout in NCS have not been found in the literature. This thesis addresses the design and implementation of real-time control systems with regard to dynamics analysis and integrated design. Three related areas have been investigated, namely control development for controllers, control implementation and scheduling on controllers, and real-time control in networked environments. Seven research problems are identified from these areas for investigation in this thesis, and accordingly seven major contributions have been claimed. Timing behaviour, quality of control, and integrated design for real-time control systems are highlighted throughout this thesis. In control design, a model-free control technique, pattern predictive control, is developed for complex reactive distillation processes. Alleviating the requirement of accurate process models, the developed control technique integrates pattern recognition, fuzzy logic, non-linear transformation, and predictive control into a unified framework to solve complex problems. Characterising the QoC indirectly with control latency and jitter, scheduling strategies for multiple control tasks are proposed to minimise the latency and/or jitter. Also, a hierarchical, QoC driven, and event-triggering feedback scheduling architecture is developed with plug-ins of either the earliest-deadline-first or fixed priority scheduling. Linking to the QoC directly, the architecture minimises the use of computing resources without sacrifice of the system QoC. It considers the control requirements, but does not rely on the control design. For real-time NCS, the dynamics of the network delay are analysed first, and the nonuniform distribution and multi-fractal nature of the delay are revealed. These results do not support two fundamental assumptions used in existing NCS literature. Then, considering the control requirements, solutions are provided to the challenging NCS problems from the network perspective. To compensate for the network delay, a real-time queuing protocol is developed to smooth out the time-varying delay and thus to achieve more predictable behaviour of packet transmissions. For control packet dropout, simple yet effective compensators are proposed. Finally, combining the queuing protocol, the packet loss compensation, the configuration of the worst-case communication delay, and the control design, an integrated design framework is developed for real-time NCS. With this framework, the network delay is limited to within a single control period, leading to simplified system analysis and improved QoC