A decoupled design in distributed control of uncertain networked control systems

This paper studies interconnected networked control systems in the presence of communication constraints and uncertainties. We propose a novel control architecture for subsystems that can decouple the design of output-feedback control strategy and the communication scheme. In this architecture, a navigator serves as the bridge between the uncertain, communication-limited system and an ideal model that has perfect communication and no uncertainties. Under this framework, one can integrate the existing communication protocols and robust control techniques into this architecture without worrying for the coupling between the control and the communication. We provide stability condition for the resulting closed-loop system and derive bounds on the error signals between the real system, the navigator and the ideal model. It is shown that these bounds can be arbitrarily reduced by improving the communication condition and tuning the low-pass filter in the controller. The results can significantly improve the predictability of the behavior of uncertain systems, which is important for safety-critical applications.