Joint Design of Control and Communication in Wireless Networked Control Systems

The control performance of a wireless networked control system is a complex function of control structure, control system parameters e. g. sampling period, controller gain and communication system structure and parameters e. g. random delay, packet loss. Further limitations may arise from low energy low performance computing nodes. In order to predict or even optimize the control performance, a joint design of both the control system with appropriate control structures and the communication system with appropriate communication protocols is intended. In this contribution a wireless networked control system where sensors, controller, and actuator communicate over a dedicated wireless network is analyzed and implemented. It is shown how to use different controllers in conjunction with dedicated communication protocols to stabilize an inverted pendulum equipped with low power low energy wireless nodes. Experimental results are provided to show the effectiveness of the method.