Integrated Computation, Communication and Control: Towards Next Revolution in Information Technology

There is a strong trend in modern industrial systems to integrate computation, communication, and control theories into networked control systems (NCSs). This is anticipated to be the next wave in the information technology revolution. From a control perspective, the interdisciplinary relationship between computation, communication and control is illustrated through control loop timing analysis of NCSs. Critical issues in the emerging field of integrated computation, communication and control (ICCC) are discussed. Since it is difficult to analytically quantify the impacts of computation and communication constraints on the quality of control (QoC), a simulation-based approach is proposed. A numerical example of networked DC motor control is utilized in simulations, with different scheduling schemes and communication protocols employed. Results and analysis give valuable suggests for improving the control performance of NCSs which feature the integration of control with computation and communication.