Static Network Access Scheduling and Stabilization of Two Inverted Pendulums Spring coupled Networked Control System

Networked Control Systems (NCS) are closed loop control systems which has band limited communication channel as the feedback path. Among the various communication network-driven issues, the main focus of this paper is on 'Medium access constraint' in which a communication medium can only provide limited number of simultaneous medium access channels for its users. Two Inverted Pendulums Coupled by a Spring (TPCS) system is a benchmark MIMO system which can be used for understanding the intricacies of NCS. The objective is to bring both the pendulums (of TPCS) to achieve the desired vertical position while tackling the limited accessibility issue of the network. Static Medium Access Scheduling strategy is proposed for the aforementioned problem wherin the difficulties that arises while controlling TPCS are also avoided. In this paper (i) Static Medium Access Scheduling protocol is discussed, selected and applied to TPCS model and (ii) an observer based output feedback controller is designed to control TPCS. This is followed by computer simulations and the results show that the scheduling protocol is effective for controlling TPCS-NCS.