A novel data utilization and control strategy for wireless structural control systems with TDMA network

Wireless control systems have advantages of flexible installation, rapid deployment, low maintenance cost and low power consumption compared to wired control system. The attractive features of wireless system as well as the rapid development of wireless sensor hardware, software and middleware make wireless control a promising field. However, there are also issues associated with wireless control systems such as network induced delay and data loss. These effects can seriously affect the control performances and may even cause instabilities in the systems. In this paper, a novel data utilization and control strategy is proposed for wireless control system with Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) network. The proposed strategy utilizes the maximum throughput of TDMA network and is evaluated using a wireless control and monitoring simulator (WCMS) for benchmark active mass driver (AMD) control system. The WCMS consists of realistic structural control components and network components. The structural control components are built in Simulink (Matlab) and network components are built in wireless network simulation tool – TOSSIM. The proposed strategy is shown to be effective in controlling the AMD system with TDMA network induced delay and data loss impact.