Embedded predictive control strategy based on Internet of Things technology: Application to a thermal process under imperfect wireless network

Abstract

This article is concerned with the design of wireless-networked control framework based on Internet of Things technology and predictive control strategy to remote control a thermal benchmark system. In order to improve the control performance of systems, an autonomous real-time solution is proposed for handling network problems. The adopted control strategy is divided into two cooperative parts under a master–slave architecture, in which two STM32 microcontrollers are investigated. The slave board is connected closely to the process and the master one is a distant controller. The microcontrollers communicate wirelessly through the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. In the master board, a model predictive output-estimator-based controller is designed to control wirelessly the benchmark system, even though the incoming outputs from the slave board are lost. However, a buffered structure is implemented on the slave board to compensate the input losses of the arrived control sequences. The performance of the proposed wireless-networked predictive control compensation strategy for packet loss and perturbation handling in the wireless-networked control system in this work is verified through different experimentation conditions. Also, a comparative study with a wireless-networked proportional integral controller is performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of wireless-networked predictive control strategy for practical Internet of Things applications.