Networked Control Systems Analysis and Design: An Overview

This paper provides an overview of the research investigations into the evolving area of networked control system. Initial discussions were focused on exploring the impact of a common digital communication network in the feedback architecture. Results on addressing communication network artifacts, such as time delays, packet dropouts, and limited communication capability due to signal quantization are thoroughly examined. Several one-channel feedback NCS configurations were presented and analyzed with focus on nonstationary packet dropouts. State, observer-based and Output feedback control design methods over a shared digital communication network are treated. Recent developments pertaining to quantized control and estimation methods are reported. A concise account of event-based control and filtering schemes is presented. Finally, the concept of cloud control systems is discussed in this paper, which is an extension of networked control systems (NCS). With the development of Internet of Things (IOT), the technology of NCSs has played a key role in IOT. Cloud computing is developed rapidly, which provides a perfect platform for big data processing, controller design, and performance assessment. The research on cloud control systems will give new contribution to the control theory and applications in the near future. Some of the laboratory-scale applications are demonstrated.