Decentralized Control Framework and Stability Analysis for Networked Control Systems

The combination of decentralized control and networked control where control loops are closed through a network is called decentralized networked control system (DNCS). This paper introduces a general framework that converts a generic decentralized control configuration of non-networked systems to the general setup of networked control systems (NCS). Two design methods from the literature of decentralized control for non-networked systems were chosen as a base for the design of a controller for the networked systems, the first being an observer-based decentralized control, while the second is the well-known Luenberger combined observer-controller. The main idea of our design is to formulate the DNCS in the general form and then map the resulting system to the general form of the NCS. First, a method for designing decentralized observer-based controller is discussed. Second, an implementation using a network is analyzed for the two designs. Third, two methods to analyze the stability of the DNCS are also introduced. Fourth, perturbation bounds for stability of the DNCS have been derived. Finally, examples and simulation results are shown and discussed.