Electrical and Electronic Engineering - Research Publications

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    A hybrid model of networked control systems implemented on WirelessHART networks under source routing configuration
    Maass, AI ; Nesic, D ; Dower, PM (IEEE, 2016)
    A Network control system (NCS) is a control system in which communication between subsystems takes place over a digital network. Numerous results exist in the literature on modelling, analysis and design of NCSs in the presence of specific communication constraints such as packet dropouts, delays, data rates, quantization, etc. However, when analysing NCSs implemented on real physical networks, the existing results are based on restrictive assumptions. We consider NCSs over WirelessHART, the first international standard for industrial process control. With the goal of closing the gap between theory and practice, we propose for the first time a hybrid control-oriented model of WirelessHART NCSs under source routing configuration. Moreover, asymptotic and exponential stability results are presented under reasonable conditions.
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    Observer design for networked control systems implemented over WirelessHART
    Maass, AI ; Nesic, D ; Postoyan, R ; Dower, PM (IEEE, 2018)
    We study the design of state observers for nonlinear networked control systems (NCSs) that are implemented over WirelessHART (WH). WH is a wireless communication protocol for process automation applications. It is characterised by its multi-hop structure, slotted communication cycles, and simultaneous transmission over different frequencies. We present a solution based on the emulation approach. That is, given an observer designed with a specific stability property in the absence of communication constraints, we implement it over a WH network and we provide sufficient conditions on the latter, to preserve the stability property of the observer. In particular, we provide explicit bounds on the maximum allowable transmission interval. We assume that the plant dynamics and measurements are affected by noise and we guarantee an inputto- state stability property for the corresponding estimation error system.
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    Emulation-based stabilisation of networked control systems over WirelessHART
    Maass, AI ; Nesic, D ; Postoyan, R ; Dower, PM ; S Varma, V (IEEE Press, 2017)
    We study the emulation-based stabilisation of nonlinear networked control systems (NCSs) implemented over WirelessHART (WH). WH is a communication protocol widely used in process instrumentation. It is characterised by its multi-hop structure, slotted communication cycles, and simultaneous transmission over different frequencies. To capture most functionalities of WH, faithful models are needed. We propose a hybrid control-oriented model of WH-NCSs that includes the key features of the network. We then follow an emulation approach to stabilise the NCS. We show that, under reasonable assumptions on the scheduling protocol, stability is preserved when the controller is implemented over the network with sufficiently frequent data transmission. We then explain how to schedule transmissions over the hops to satisfy those assumptions.
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    Observer design for non-linear networked control systems with persistently exciting protocols
    Maass, AI ; Nesic, D ; Postoyan, R ; Dower, PM (IEEE, 2020-07)
    We study the design of state observers for nonlinear networked control systems (NCSs) affected by disturbances and measurement noise, via an emulation-like approach. That is, given an observer designed with a specific stability property in the absence of communication constraints, we implement it over a network and we provide sufficient conditions on the latter to preserve the stability property of the observer. In particular, we provide a bound on the maximum allowable transmission interval (MATI) that guarantees an input-to-state stability (ISS) property for the corresponding estimation error system. The stability analysis is trajectory-based, utilises small-gain arguments, and exploits a persistently exciting (PE) property of the scheduling protocols. This property is key in our analysis and allows us to obtain significantly larger MATI bounds in comparison to the ones found in the literature. Our results hold for a general class of NCSs, however, we show that these results are also applicable to NCSs implemented over a specific physical network called WirelessHART (WH). The latter is mainly characterised by its multi-hop structure, slotted communication cycles, and the possibility to simultaneously transmit over different frequencies. We show that our results can be further improved by taking into account the intrinsic structure of the WH-NCS model. That is, we explicitly exploit the model structure in our analysis to obtain an even tighter MATI bound that guarantees the same ISS property for the estimation error system. Finally, to illustrate our results, we present analysis and numerical simulations for a class of Lipschitz non-linear systems and high-gain observers.
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    L-p stability of networked control systems implemented on WirelessHART
    Maass, AI ; Nesic, D ; Postoyan, R ; Dower, PM (Elsevier, 2019-11-01)
    This paper provides results on input–output Lp stability of networked control systems (NCSs) implemented over WirelessHART (WH). WH is a communication protocol widely used in process instrumentation. It is mainly characterised by its multi-hop structure, slotted communication cycles, and the possibility to simultaneously transmit over different frequencies. We propose a non-linear hybrid model of WH–NCSs that is able to capture these network functionalities, and that it is more general than existing models in the literature. Particularly, the multi-hop nature of the network is translated into an interesting mathematical structure in our model. We then follow the emulation approach to stabilise the NCS. We first assume that we know a stabilising controller for the plant without the network. We subsequently show that, under reasonable assumptions on the scheduling protocol, stability is preserved when the controller is implemented over the network with sufficiently frequent data transmission. Specifically, we provide bounds on the maximum allowable transmission interval (MATI) under which all protocols that satisfy the property of being persistently exciting (PE) lead to Lp stable WH–NCSs. These bounds exploit the mathematical structure of our WH–NCS model, improving the existing bounds in the literature. Additionally, we explain how to schedule transmissions over the hops to satisfy the PE property. In particular, we show how simultaneous transmissions over different frequency channels can be exploited to further enlarge the MATI bound.