THE APPLICATION OF TRANSPUTERS TO DISTRIBUTED CONTROL

This paper describes the development of a flexible control system based on multiple T800 floating point transputers and is presented in two parts. In part 1 of the paper an overview is presented of distributed command and control systems (DCCS) and the suitability of the transputer for implementation within such systems discussed. It is concluded in this initial investigation that the transputer is ideally suited for use in such systems as it is not only a very powerful processing device but the addition of serial communication links allows individual control modules to easily communicate with other controllers, hosts and external devices. In part 2 of the article, entitled 'A parallel architecture for distributed adaptive control', a transputer-based adaptive control module which has been developed is described. The integration of this flexible controller into a distributed control system is also discussed. © 1993 Academic Press. All rights reserved.