Control Strategy Design of Networked Control Systems Based on Maximum Allowable Delay Bounds

In this work, we treat the network protocol and traffic as given conditions and develop a control strategy based on the maximum allowable delay bound of networked control systems that takes the network-induced delay into account. We construct a hierarchical control structure that consists of a main controller and a local closed-loop system. The local control system consists of a family of control configurations for each of which a stabilizing feedback controller is designed, and the maximum allowable delay bound is explicitly characterized. On the basis of the maximum allowable delay bound the local supervisor orchestrates switching between the constituent configurations. The method can be more efficient to deal with random, possibly unbounded, time-delays, such as the case over the Internet. An example is presented to demonstrated the efficacy of the proposed approach.