Observer‐based controllers with data dropout rate adaptation

Abstract

Summary In this work, we address the observer‐based control problem for networked control systems with an unknown time‐varying packet arrival rate (PAR) and under root mean square‐norm bounded disturbances. We assume packetized transmissions of both measurement and control input through a communication network with successful delivery acknowledgement. Using the measurement reception state and the control transmission acknowledgement, we derive a filter to estimate the PAR. We consider that the PAR changes sporadically from a constant value to another one; that is, it has two different behaviours: transient and steady state. While the observer only updates the state estimation using the current received measurements, the controller computes the control action employing the current state estimation and the previous applied control input. We propose to schedule both the observer and controller with rational functions of the PAR estimation. We show that the separation principle applies, and then, seeking higher performance accuracy, we develop an optimization H∞ observer and controller design procedure that considers the two possible behaviours of the PAR. This optimization procedure attempts to maximize the estimation and control performances for each of the possible constant values of the PAR while offering robustness against PAR estimation errors and variations of the PAR. By exploiting sum‐of‐squares decomposition techniques, the design procedure involves an optimization problem over polynomials. A numerical example illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.