Rapid advances in information processing, communication and sensing technologies have enabled more and more devices to be provided with embedded processors, networking capabilities and sensors. For the field of estimation and control, it is now possible to consider an architecture in which many simple components communicate and cooperate to achieve a joint team goal. This distributed (or networked) architecture promises much in terms of performance, reliability and simplicity of design. However, at the same time, it requires extending the traditional theories of control, communication and computation and, in fact, looking at a unified picture of the three fields. From an estimation and control perspective, the presence of real communication channels can lead to a significant performance loss due to the introduction of non-classical information patterns into the problem. This book deals with new design principles to counter such performance degradation. The chief idea explored in this book is the joint design of information flow and the control law. While traditional control design has concentrated on calculating the optimal control input by assuming a particular information flow between the components, our approach seeks to synthesize the optimal information flow along with the optimal control law that satisfies the constraints of the information flow. Thus besides the question of What should an agent do?, the questions of Whom should an agent talk to?, What should an agent communicate?, When should an agent communicate? and so on also have to be answered. The design of the information flow represents an important degree of freedom available to the system designer that has hithertolargely been ignored. As we demonstrate in the book, the joint design of information flow and the optimal control input satisfying the constraints of that information flow yields large improvements in performance over simply trying to fit traditional design theories on distributed systems.

Media support of communication has dramatically changed during the last decade. This trend is especially driven by new media technologies, like e. g. "Voice-over IP" (VoIP). VoIP provides a solid converged network, combining voice, data, fax and video transmissions into a cohesive networking infrastructure centered on the Internet Protocol (IP). Permanent innovations in the telecommunication and computer industry enable these new kinds of media support. Since media support of communication changed so much, recently it seems to be necessary to prove if the existing media-theories which worked for older media are still valid for the new media as described. This question stands in the foreground of this book and this question is elaborated in the book by presenting an alternative in the sense of a comprehensive media theory-based framework. VoIP-based SkypeT-technology are used as an example throughout the whole book. After discussing the different traditional media- theories and approaches the new perspectives "roommetaphor" and "virtuality" for the topic is suggested and explained. This book addresses primarily the communicating business-community on the one hand and teachers, students and interested people in communication and information science.

This monograph focuses on characterizing the stability and performance consequences of inserting limited-capacity communication networks within a control loop. The text shows how integration of the ideas of control and estimation with those of communication and information theory can be used to provide important insights concerning several fundamental problems such as: · minimum data rate for stabilization of linear systems over noisy channels; · minimum network requirement for stabilization of linear systems over fading channels; and · stability of Kalman filtering with intermittent observations. A fundamental link is revealed between the topological entropy of linear dynamical systems and the capacities of communication channels. The design of a logarithmic quantizer for the stabilization of linear systems under various network environments is also extensively discussed and solutions to many problems of Kalman filtering with intermittent observations are demonstrated. Analysis and Design of Networked Control Systems will interest control theorists and engineers working with networked systems and may also be used as a resource for graduate students with backgrounds in applied mathematics, communications or control who are studying such systems.

This book presents Networked Control System (NCS) as a particular kind of a real-time distributed system (RTDS), composed of a set of nodes, interconnected by a network, and able to develop a complete control process. It describes important parts of the control process such as sensor and actuator activities, which rely on a real-time operating system, and a real-time communication network. As the use of common bus network architecture introduces different forms of uncertainties between sensors, actuators, and controllers, several approaches such as reconfigurable systems have been developed to tackle this problem. Moreover, modeling NCS is a challenging procedure, since there are several non-linear situations, like local saturations, uncertain time delays, dead-zones, or local situations, it is necessary to deal with. The book describes a novel strategy for modelling and control based on a fuzzy control approach and codesign strategies.

This book introduces a unique, packet-based co-design control framework for networked control systems. It begins by providing a comprehensive survey of state-of-the-art research on networked control systems, giving readers a general overview of the field. It then verifies the proposed control framework both theoretically and experimentally – the former using multiple control methodologies, and the latter using a unique online test rig for networked control systems. The framework investigates in detail the most common, communication constraints, including network-induced delays, data packet dropout, data packet disorders, and network access constraints, as well as multiple controller design and system analysis tools such as model predictive control, linear matrix inequalities and optimal control. This unique and complete co-design framework greatly benefits researchers, graduate students and engineers in the fields of control theory and engineering.

Analysis and Synthesis of Networked Control Systems focuses on essential aspects of this field, including quantization over networks, data fusion over networks, predictive control over networks and fault detection over networks. The networked control systems have led to a complete new range of real-world applications. In recent years, the techniques of Internet of Things are developed rapidly, the research of networked control systems plays a key role in Internet of Things. The book is self-contained, providing sufficient mathematical foundations for understanding the contents of each chapter. It will be of significant interest to scientists and engineers engaged in the field of Networked Control Systems. Dr. Yuanqing Xia, a professor at Beijing Institute of Technology, has been working on control theory and its applications for over ten years.