A network-centric robust resource allocation strategy for unmanned systems: Stability analysis

It is widely understood that communication is a critical technological factor in designing autonomous unmanned networks consisting of a large number of heterogeneous nodes that may be configured in ad-hoc fashions and incorporating intricate architectures. In fact, one of the challenges in this field is to recognize the entire network as a heterogenous collection of physical and information systems with complicated interconnections and interactions. Using high data rates that are essential for real-time interactive command and control systems, these networks require utilization of optimal integration of local feedback loops into a scheduling and resource allocation systems. This integration becomes particularly problematic in presence of latencies and delays. Given that dynamics of a network of unmanned systems could easily become unstable depending on interconnections among nodes, in this paper stability of the resulting time-delayed controlled network based on configuration changes is studied. We also formally investigate sufficient conditions for our proposed robust resource allocation strategies to be able to cope with these interconnections and time-delays in an optimal fashion. Our time-delayed dependent network consists of three nodes that can be configured into different architectures. To model our traffic and network we use a fluid flow model that is of low order and simpler than a detailed Markovian queueing probabilistic model. Using sliding mode-based variable structure control (SM-VSC) techniques that enjoy robustness capabilities, we design on the basis of an inaccurate/uncertain model our proposed robust nonlinear feedback-based control approaches. The results presented are analyzed analytically to guarantee stability of known/unknown time-delayed dependent network of unmanned systems for different configurations.