Optimal Control with Packet Drops in Networked Control Systems

The stability and performance of a networked control system are strongly influenced by the network delay and packet drops. In this paper, we consider that late arrived sampling data are dropped, so that we only focus on the analysis of the impact of packet drop sequences on the control loop stability and performance. For any dropping sequence specified by (m,k)-firm model, and considering a simple mono-variable linear system with a proportional controller and zero control action in case of sampling data drop, we derived the stability conditions based on the upper bound of the plant state variance. It has been shown that the stability only depends on the values of m and k but not the pattern of the dropping sequence. In case of network overload, this gives much freedom to actively dropping some packets while still keeping the system stable. An analytic method to determine the optimal control gain for any given packet drop pattern is also derived, providing thus a guideline for optimal control and network resource scheduling co-design. Copyright © 2009 IFAC