Specification and Analysis of Network Resource Requirements of Control Systems

We focus on spatially distributed control systems in which measurement and actuation data is sent via a bus shared with other applications. An approach is proposed for specifying and implementing dynamic scheduling policies for the bus with performance guarantees. Specifically, we propose an automata-based scheduler which we automatically generate from a model of the controlled plant and the controller. We show that, in addition to ensuring performance, our approach allows adjustments to dynamic conditions such as varying disturbances and network load. We present a full development path from performance specifications (exponential stability) to a control design and its implementation using Controller Area Network (CAN).