Feedback Scheduling of Real-Time Control Systems with Resource Constraints

Despite rapid advances in information technologies, real-time control systems (RTCSs) are becoming ever-increasingly resource limited in recent years. At the same time, RTCSs often have to operate in dynamic environments that feature workload fluctuation. As a consequence, the available computing and communication resources are typically non-deterministic. In this new implementation environment, traditional control systems design and implementation methodology, which separates control from scheduling, cannot always provide quality of control (QoC) guarantees. From a resource scheduling perspective, existing open-loop real-time scheduling algorithms obviously lack flexibility when applied to RTCSs, and consequently cannot achieve optimal usage of available resources. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to develop novel paradigms for enabling real-time control under dynamic environments and optimizing the overall QoC under dynamic resource constraints associated with implementation platforms.