Networked
Control (5 CFU)
Automation
and Control Engineering
Prof. Marcello Farina
Dipartimento di Elettronica,
Informazione e Bioingegneria
Tel. 02 2399 3599
e. mail: marcello.farina@polimi.it
personal webpage: https://farina.faculty.polimi.it/
OBJECTIVES:
In the past
decades a growing interest has been dedicated to networked systems and
large-scale plants where parts of the system, e.g., sensors, actuators, are not
collocated and are possibly distributed over a large geographic area. These
classes of systems include, e.g., large chemical plants, power distribution
networks, industrial factories, water distribution networks, and multiple
agents cooperating with each other through suitable coordination schemes (e.g.,
unmanned aerial and ground vehicles and teams of robots).
The control
of these systems may require communication through a shared transmission
network and/or to resort to complex (e.g. hierarchical, distributed, or
hierarchical) schemes.
However, one
the one hand, communication through a shared transmission network involves a
number of issues, e.g., bandwidth limitation, delays, packet dropouts, which
can compromize the stability properties of the
network. On the other hand, distributed and decentralized control structures
entail structural constraints and limitations, and call for non-standard
analysis and control design tools.
The course covers the necessary
mathematical and technical tools for the analysis and the design of possibly
complex control systems subject to communication and structural issues.
Lectures and exercise sessions will allow students to:
o Understand the challenges, opportunities,
and issues related to networked control systems.
o Understand the possible sources
of communication problems, including bandwidth limitations, delays, and packet
dropouts.
o Learn how to devise mathematical
models where communication issues are formally described, and perform stability
analysis of networked control systems, i.e., where communication takes place
through a serial communication bus.
o Understand the theoretical
limitations (e.g., decentralized fixed modes) related to decentralized and distributed
control structures, and learn how to design decentralized and distributed
regulators with linear matrix inequalities.
TOPICS:
The course
will cover the following topics:
o Introduction
on networked control systems, control architectures for large-scale and
networked systems, and application areas. Issues and challenges of networked
control systems.
o Theoretical
background. Basic and
more advanced concepts in control theory (with focus on linear systems) will be
recalled and covered, in order to provide consistent background to the
students, e.g.
o Stability of continuous-time and
discrete-time systems;
o Controllability and
observability;
o Basics on linear matrix
inequalities in control systems analysis and design.
o Decentralized
and distributed control structures.
o Definition of decentralized/sitributed fixed modes and stabilization with decentralized
and distributed regulators.
o Design of decentralized and
distributed controllers using LMIs.
o Control
with communication issues.
o Communication issues in networked
control systems. Control networks, packet transmission, and transmission
protocols.
o Control with bandwidth
limitations: minimum channel capacity requirements.
o Network-induced delays and packet
dropouts. Stability analysis in case of network-induced delays and packet
dropouts.
Numerical
lectures will consist of both numerical exercize and
computer-based sessions. Concerning the latter, the described analysis and
design methods will be implemented using dedicated computer tools and programs
(e.g., MATLAB and YALMIP).
EVALUATION:
The Exam
consists of two parts. Regarding the course Part II (Decentralized and
distributed control structures) a project work will have to be completed and
presented in an oral discussion. Regarding the course part III (Network control
systems), a written test will be taken.
PREREQUISITES:
The students
are required to have a background on (basics of) automatic control and systems
theory, with specific focus on state-space (linear) models, both in continuous
and in discrete time.
TEACHING MATERIAL:
o The main course material consists
of detailed slides and lecture notes, and of computer programs that will be
made available on the BeeP/WeBeep
Portal to registered users.
o Supplementary suggested readings
include
o R. J. Baillieul,
P. J. Antsaklis. Control and communication challenges
in networked real-time systems. Proceedings
of the IEEE, 95 (1), pp. 9-28.
o J. R. Moyne and D. M. Tilbury. The emergence of industrial control networks for
manufacturing control, diagnostics, and safety data. Proceedings of the IEEE, 95 (1), pp. 29-47.
o R. J. Baillieul,. Feedback coding
for information-based control: operating near the data-rate limit. Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on
Decision and Control, 2002, pp. 3229-3236.
o W. Zhang, M. S. Branicky, S. M. Phillips. Stability of networked control
systems. IEEE Control Systems Magazine,
2001, pp. 84-99.
o J. P. Hespanha, P. Naghshtabrizi, Y. Xu. A survey of recent results in networked control
systems. Proceedings of the IEEE, 95
(1), pp. 138-162.
o J. Lunze.
Feedback Control of Large-Scale Systems.
Prentice Hall International Series in Systems and Control Engineering, 1992.
o A. Zecevic,
D. D. Siljak. Control
of complex systems. Structural constraints and uncertainty. Springer, 2010.
CALENDAR: