A new networked predictive control approach for systems with random network delay in the forward channel

Abstract

This article is concerned with the design of a networked predictive control (NPC) scheme with random network delay in the forward channel. A new design method of NPC is proposed. Correspondingly, the necessary and sufficient conditions on the stability of the closed-loop networked control system are derived. The merit of the proposed design method lies in its decreased conservativeness, which is achieved by packing the current predictive control signal with history predictive signals. By this means, the future plant input is known. Therefore, the state predictor can be designed such that its performance and stability will not be affected by the future input of the plant, while the existing design methods of NPC cannot do so. The proposed design method is shown to be much less conservative than the existing result through several examples.

Keywords:

• networked control system (NCS)
• networked predictive control
• random network delay
• stability

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China under Grant 60825302, 60774015 and 60674018, the High Technology Research and Development Program of China (Grant: 2007AA041403), the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (Grant: 20060248001) and partly by Shanghai Natural Science Foundation (07JC14016). The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees and the editor for their constructive and valuable comments that have improved the presentation.