The Sensitive Networking

Time Sensitive Network-Based Control Systems and Applications - Description

For many years now, data networking technologies have been widely applied in the control of industrial and military applications. These applications include manufacturing plants, automobiles, and aircrafts. Connecting the control system components in these applications, such as sensors, controllers, and actuators, via a network can effectively reduce the complexity of the systems with nominal economical investments. Furthermore, the applications connected through a network can be remotely controlled from a long-distance source. Traditionally, the networks used in the aforementioned applications are specific industrial networks, such as CAN (Controller Area Networks), and PROFIBUS. However,general data networks such as Ethernet and Internet are rapidly advancing to be the networks of choices for many applications due to theirflexibility and lower costs.

A challenging problem in control of networked-based system is network delay effects. The time to read a sensor measurement and to send a control signal to an actuator through the network depends on network characteristics such as their topologies, routing schemes, etc. Therefore, the overall performance of a network-based control system can be significantly affected by network delays. The severity of the delay problem is aggravated when data loss occurs during a transmission. Moreover, the delays do not only degrade the performance of a network-based control system, but also can destabilize the system.