Novel Architecture for Networked Control Systems

In this paper a novel architecture for control system design in networked environment is presented, where the consistent distribution of the control system functionalities is proposed to the dedicated time-aware system components. The sensing, actuating and algorithmic functionalities are uniformly encapsulated into the passive system components utilized as a network-accessible service groups. Service agents are introduced as novel active components of the distributed middleware that provide automation of real-time data transport between the service groups across the arbitrary control system network topology. The networked control system architecture and operation are verified through drying chamber temperature control case study where generalized predictive control algorithm is used for the process control and recursive least-square estimation for the monitoring and fault detection. The main benefit of the proposed architecture can be found in the domain of the system integration which is effectively decoupled from the design of individual system components. The system integration can be performed in run-time through the configuration of the consisting system components and the need of specialized closed-loop application is eliminated. System with just basic functionalities can be easily upgraded to full fault detection and SCADA coverage or any other advanced functionality.