Networked Control Research Articles

Periodic event-triggered data-driven control for networked control systems with time-varying delays

This article focuses on data-driven analysis and controller design for networked control systems (NCSs) with network-induced delays. The study considers a linear time-invariant (LTI) system controlled through a periodic event-triggering mechanism. First, by leveraging data-based representations, we establish data-based stability conditions for NCSs with time-varying delays. Furthermore, we propose the data-based method for co-designing the controller and the periodic event-triggering scheme. In addition, we present novel data-based conditions for verifying dissipativity properties of NCSs. The effectiveness of our proposed methods is validated through a simulation and a turbofan engine hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) experiment.

Transmit or Retransmit: A Tradeoff in Networked Control of Dynamical Processes Over Lossy Channels With Ideal Feedback

Transmit or Retransmit: A Tradeoff in Networked Control of Dynamical Processes Over Lossy Channels With Ideal Feedback

3D Digital Modeling Technology for Thermal Power Plant Boilers Based on Digital Twins

With the rapid advancement of Digital Twins (DTs) technologies, they have emerged as viable solutions for enhancing the control and optimization of thermal power combustion processes. This paper presents a pioneering approach that leverages DTs to revolutionize the combustion process control system within thermal power generating units. Focused on bridging the physical and digital realms, our research establishes DTs of the combustion process control system (CPCS), situated within the Networked Control System Laboratory (NCSLab). We propose a novel five-dimensional (5D) DTs model encompassing the physical, data, service, connection, and virtual models, thereby facilitating a comprehensive fusion of physical and digital information. By analyzing the demands and technical intricacies of the combustion process control system, we design and implement a virtual 3D model, enriching the visualization and analytical capabilities of the DT environment. Furthermore, through controlled experiments on the combustion process and rigorous comparison with offline simulations, we validate the efficacy and feasibility of our approach. Importantly, our research opens avenues for future exploration, particularly in harnessing industrial real-time data to drive the virtual 3D model. Through the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques such as Deep Learning, we elevate the capabilities of our DT framework. This enhanced predictive analytics, dynamic optimization, human–machine interaction, and virtual model realism. This research contributes to the advancement of DT technology in the context of thermal power plants and holds promise for driving innovation and efficiency across diverse industrial sectors.

Fault-tolerant control of nonlinear networked control systems based on a dynamic event-triggered mechanism under dual cyber attacks

In this paper, the fault-tolerant control problem of actuator failures for nonlinear networked control systems under deception attacks and denial-of-service attacks is investigated based on a dynamic event-triggered mechanism. Firstly, denial-of-service attacks and deception attacks are modeled as two independent variables that conform to the Bernoulli probability distribution, and the fault-tolerant control problem of nonlinear networked control systems is considered under the possible actuator failures. Then, an appropriate Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional is constructed, and sufficient conditions for ensuring asymptotic stability of the closed-loop systems are obtained using Jensen inequality. Meanwhile, the designed fault-tolerant controller can handle possible actuator failures. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is proved through an example.

Construction method for novel power load management system detection environment based on model adaptive equivalence

With the focus on integrating large-scale clean energy, the requirements for demand-side load resource management and maintaining the power system's supply-demand balance have increased. New types of power load management are thus gaining importance. Considering the varied load management needs and response strategies across different scenarios, and taking into account essential network elements like topology and connectivity, a multi-level interactive architecture is established to support hierarchical load control networking models for energy flow. By leveraging statistical analysis and simulation deduction, this approach improves the comprehensive evaluation of load system indicators, particularly in scenarios with small sample sizes and significant randomness. This methodology contributes to more efficient power system management and enhances load control adaptability.

Event‐Triggered Generalized Extended State Observer‐Based Control for Nonlinear Networked Systems Under Gain Variation and Multi‐Channel Attacks

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the event‐triggered generalized extended state observer‐based estimation issue for a class of nonlinear networked control systems with unmodeled dynamics, external disturbances and multi‐channel attacks. In order to resist different forms of attack threats on multiple communication channels from sensors to the observer, Markov chain is introduced to describe the stochastic switching or jumping behavior between different attack modes. Considering the limited network resources, the measured outputs are transmitted to the observer only when the triggering conditions are met. Moreover, the parameters modeled by the Bernoulli process are adopted to help analyze potential random gain variations of the generalized extended state observer. By employing Lyapunov stability theory and stochastic systems analysis, sufficient conditions are derived to ensure that the augmented system is exponentially bounded in mean square, and the expected observer gains are further determined through linear matrix inequalities. Finally, a numerical example and a simulation related to the RLC series circuit system are conducted, illustrating the proposed method's effectiveness.

Event‐Triggered Secure Control of Positive Networked Control Systems Under Multi‐Channels Attacks

ABSTRACTThis paper focuses on the secure control of positive networked control systems under multi‐channel attacks characterized by a Bernoulli distribution. Specifically, the sensor‐to‐controller channel suffers from false data injection (FDI) attacks, whereas the controller‐to‐actuator channel suffers from denial of service (DoS) attacks. The objective is to design a static output feedback controller that guarantees the positivity and stochastic stability of the closed‐loop system in the presence of DoS and FDI attacks. To conserve communication resources, we employ an event‐triggered scheme to reduce the frequency of information transmission. Due to the positivity of the system, the proposed event‐triggering mechanism employs the 1‐norm form instead of the 2‐norm form, which allows that the controller parameter is determined via linear programming rather than LMI technique. Finally, two simulation examples are provided to verify the effectiveness of our methods.

Networked Control of a Small Drone Resilient to Cyber Attacks

With increasing advances in networked systems and networked control systems in everyday life, the problem of cybersecurity becomes crucial. Moreover, in some applications like small UAVs, the safety and integrity of the system and its surroundings are highly susceptible to cyberattacks. In this context, the current paper proposes a resilient networked control approach. The control structure is split into an inner and an outer loop. The outer position control loop uses measurements from motion cameras connected to a remote computer, while the commands are sent through the network. We consider the resilience problem for two types of cyberattacks: denial of service (DoS), emulated as an increase in the network transmission delay, and man in the middle (MitM), emulated as additive input disturbances. The mitigation for the DoS attack is performed through the help of a reference governor (RG), which uses the delay estimates and the system’s model to predict future safety violations and adapts the reference accordingly. The MitM attack is mitigated by an unknown input disturbance observer (UIDO) together with a RG. Experimental results on a Parrot Mambo drone show that both types of attacks are rejected successfully, ensuring a safe and stable flight.

Event-triggered and quantised feedback stabilisation of switched networked control systems

In order to conserve network resources, this paper investigates the event-triggered control and quantised feedback stabilisation of switched networked control systems by introducing the vector quantizer technique. The state information undergoes quantisation and is transmitted to the controller after being sampled by the event-triggering technology. The designed event-triggered mechanism relies on quantised state values, and the generation of each quantised value also depends on the event-triggered condition. Addressing the asynchronous issue between the controller and the subsystem, we provide a sufficient condition for ensuring exponential stability of the closed-loop system and outline the controller gain design method by employing the multiple Lyapunov function and average dwell time methods. Besides, we demonstrate the explicit exclusion of the Zeno phenomenon in the event-triggered mechanism. Finally, the viability of our approach is demonstrated through simulation examples.

Dynamic Event-Triggered Control for Sensor–Controller–Actuator Networked Control Systems

We consider the problem of output feedback stabilization of LTI systems under event-triggering implementation. In particular, we assume that both the plant output and the control input are both transmitted over the network in an asynchronous manner. To that end, two independent event-triggering rules are constructed to generate the transmission instants of the submitted signals. The proposed approach is dynamic in the sense that the triggering rules involve internal dynamical variables to allow for further reduction in the communication load. Moreover, the inter-transmission times for both sides of the channel are lower bound by enforced dwell times to prevent the occurrence of Zeno phenomena. The problem is challenging due to mutual interactions between the sampling errors of the plant output and the control input, which requires careful handling to ensure closed-loop stability. The triggering mechanisms are designed by emulation as we first ignore the effect of the network and stabilize the plant in continuous-time. Then, the communication constraints are taken into account to derive the triggering conditions such that the stability of the networked control system is preserved. The required conditions are formulated in terms of a linear matrix inequality. The effectiveness of the technique is demonstrated by numerical simulations.

Sampled-Data H∞ Dynamic Output-Feedback Control for NCSs With Successive Packet Losses and Stochastic Sampling.

The problem of sampled-data H∞ dynamic output-feedback control for networked control systems with successive packet losses (SPLs) and stochastic sampling is investigated in this article. The aim of using sampled-data control techniques is to alleviate network congestion. SPLs that occur in the sensor-to-controller (S-C) and controller-to-actuator (C-A) channels are modeled using a packet loss model. Additionally, it is assumed that stochastic sampling follows a Bernoulli distribution. A model is established to capture the stochastic characteristics of both the SPL model and stochastic sampling. This model is crucial as it allows us to determine the probability distribution of the sampling interval between successive update instants, which is essential for stability analysis. An exponential mean-square stability condition for the constructed equivalent discrete-time stochastic system, which also guarantees the prescribed H∞ performance, is established by incorporating probability theory. The desired controller is designed using a step-by-step synthesis approach, which may offer lower design conservatism compared to some existing methods. Finally, our designed approach using a networked F-404 engine system model is validated and its merits relative to existing results are discussed. The proposed method is finally validated by employing a networked model of the F-404 engine system. Furthermore, the advantages of our method are presented in comparison to previous results.

Stability of networked control systems under malicious attacks and bit rate constraints

This article investigates the stability of networked control systems under two types of malicious attacks and bit rate constraints. The malicious attacks may lead to parameter mismatches, including scaling variable mismatches between the encoder and decoder sides and discrepancies between the data sent by the encoder and received by the decoder, causing system instability. To address these issues, scaling variable update rules are proposed for the encoder and decoder sides separately to mitigate the adverse effects of malicious attacks. A control strategy featuring a compensation term is designed to counteract the detrimental impacts of the mismatch. A lower bound on the bit rate is established to prevent quantization saturation and achieve exponential stability of the system. Finally, confirmatory and comparative simulations showcase the effectiveness of the theoretical insights and the merits of the proposed strategies, respectively.

Adaptive control of networked control systems under DoS attacks

This research introduces a new adaptive control approach tailored for networked control systems, aimed at addressing the challenges of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and round-trip time delays. Initially, a compensation mechanism based on estimated values is introduced to counter DoS attacks; subsequently, for round-trip time delay issues, a predictive delay compensation control strategy is designed. The proposed control strategy does not rely on the specific structure or a particular model of the system, but instead solely updates the controller using the system's input and output values. Moreover, we successfully demonstrate the bounded stability of the system using the direct Lyapunov method. Ultimately, the effectiveness and practicality of this method are confirmed through simulation results.

LQG control for networked control systems with packet dropouts and input delay: UDP case

LQG control for networked control systems with packet dropouts and input delay: UDP case

Dynamic event‐triggered model‐free adaptive control for networked control systems with random packet loss

AbstractA novel dual‐channel dynamic event‐triggered model‐free adaptive control method with compensation is proposed for nonlinear networked control systems (NCSs) subjected to random packet loss. In order to tackle the issue of redundant data transmission, a dual‐channel triggering control framework is designed, where data transmission only occurs upon meeting the triggering conditions. Compared with the traditional static event‐triggered schemes with fixed triggering thresholds, the proposed method allows for dynamically adjustable triggering thresholds. This means that the number of data transmissions in the forward and feedback channels can be further reduced. In addition, considering the detrimental impact of random packet loss and output event‐triggered on the system, compensation is applied to the system's output data using the linear data model of the nonlinear system, which is directly derived from I/O data without incorporating any other mechanistic model information, thereby ensuring optimal control performance. In contrast to existing results, the proposed control strategy can enhance system performance while conserving network communication resources. The effectiveness and superiority of the proposed scheme have been validated through two simulations.

Triplex event-triggered recursive quantizer-based networked control system under communication delay and packet dropouts

In light of network congestion, communication delay, and packet dropouts, a triplex event-triggered recursive quantizer-based networked control system (TERQNCS) is proposed in this paper. To constrain quantization error while alleviating network congestion, the recursive quantizer is constructed in the TERQNCS. Considering it is insufficient to adequately alleviate network congestion only with either the quantizer or the event trigger, a triplex event-triggered mechanism is designed through the recursive quantizer. For revealing the impacts of communication delay and packet dropouts, four Bernoulli random variables are adopted to model the network channels in the TERQNCS. Then, the model-based predictive controller is designed by virtue of the predictive states, estimated states, and Bernoulli-based model. The proposed TERQNCS can achieve the desired system performance under communication delay and packet dropouts while adequately alleviating network congestion and constraining quantization error. The stability of the TERQNCS is proved by theoretical analysis. Besides, the advantages of the TERQNCS are substantiated by a tunnel diode circuit networked control system.

Event-Based Finite-Time $$H_\infty $$ Security Control for Networked Control Systems with Deception Attacks

Event-Based Finite-Time $$H_\infty $$ Security Control for Networked Control Systems with Deception Attacks

Optimal Control Strategy to Analyse the Networked Control System Stability

It is crucial to preserve the networked control systems (NCS) transient performance and stability because adding uncertain parameters degrades system performance and introduces instability. Thus, the analysis of NCS system performance under uncertain conditions, such as disturbance, is the focus of this paper. The performance of NCS is demonstrated using control action and some appropriate stability conditions. The simulation diagram in result section displays effectiveness of proposed methodology and shows a comparative analysis of the response signal with and without control action along with disturbance in NCS. Experiments conducted in the MATLAB Simulink environment demonstrate the efficacy of the suggested methodology.

5G Network with Hexagonal SDN Control for Highly Secure Multimedia Communication

The 5G communication network is a promising technology that offers user-centric connectivity to customers, enabling quick, high-capacity, and latency-free access to many applications. Software Defined Networking Controller (SDNC) is an emerging technology that is used for increasing the security and maintaining the dynamic nature of mobile devices in latency and energy-assured 5G wireless communication. Different SDN topology open flow controllers are used in the literature for increasing the throughput and security of the network but they possess some drawbacks such as frequent location update (LU) overhead, high latency, and high energy consumption. This paper proposes a hexagonal software defined network (H-SDN) controller to overcome these challenges. The proposed H-SDN topology is used to preserve Intermediate Message Layer (IML) location during multimedia data transmission. A Core Switch (CS) updates an IML's location within clusters of cells, as long as it remains within the cluster. However, in the proposed method, there will be a location update on the server if the IML departs the cluster. Experiment results show that the proposed method can increase security, which in turn increases throughput, while reduces the location update costs, energy consumption, and transmission latency.

Pth moment asymptotic stability for stochastic complex networked control systems with Lévy noise

Pth moment asymptotic stability for stochastic complex networked control systems with Lévy noise