Internet-Based Control of Industrial Automation Systems

This paper presents a new method for Internet-based control of linear automation systems by combining the predictive control and the variable sampling period strategies. In this way, event driven sensors are implemented and the sensors are triggered to sample the outputs of the plant, when new control input signals are received by the actuators. Therefore, at each sampling instant, total control loop delay will be equal to the sampling period which is unknown. In order to deal with Internet effects, associated with a range of pre-specified time delays, appropriate zero-order hold discrete-time models of the Internet-based plant are calculated off-line, and based on them, some stabilizing control signals are constructed on-line. This control signals are then packed in the control-side packet, transmitted back to the plant-side and received by a time delay compensator module. According to the actually occurred time delay in the loop, this module selects a single entry of the received control vector for each actuator, and applies them to the plant, through zero-order hold elements. Simultaneously, the sensors are triggered to measure the new plant data, the plant-side packet is assembled and transmitted to the control-side. The above procedure is then repeated from start. A less conservative switched quadratic Lyapunov is used here for stabilizing controller design. Simulation studies on well-known benchmark problems demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.