Compensation for control packet dropout in networked control systems

With the integration of communication networks and distributed control in modern manufacturing and process industries, networked control systems (NCSs) are becoming increasingly important due to its simplicity, scalability, flexibility, and cost effectiveness. However, there are still significant technical barriers that limit the applications of NCS technologies. Two challenges are network-induced time delay and data packet dropout. Applying a real-time queuing protocol that we developed recently, we are able to limit the sum of the network-induced communication delay and the control computation delay within a control period. This one-period delay is further guaranteed by well designed compensation for control packet dropout. Then, this paper proposes to compensate for the control packet dropout at the actuator using past control signals. Three model-free strategies for control packet dropout compensation, namely, PD (proportional plus derivative), PD2 (Proportional plus up to the second-order derivative), and PD3 (proportional plus up to the third-order derivative) are developed. They are suitable for a large number of NCSs without the need to tune the compensator parameters. The proposed dropout compensation schemes are demonstrated through numerical examples.