Application of congestion control algorithms for the control of a large number of actuators with a matrix network drive system

Systems with a large number of actuators can be built more efficiently by reducing the number of amplifiers using a matrix network drive system. The system with network drive architecture has limited capacity in terms of power related resources. In this paper, congestion control algorithm, along with several other algorithms, is presented for scheduling of the network drive system. For the network drive system, the load to the network is the output of the Pulse Width Modulators of each actuator. As the demand for the actuators increases, the duty ratio of the PWM outputs will increase. The objective of the scheduling strategy is to maximize the average duty ratio of the PWM power input to the actuator without causing instability of the network modulator, and to minimize the effect of the instability on the system performance when it occurs. Four different protocols are presented and compared using simulation.