Design of Distributed Engine Control Systems for Stability Under Communication Packet Dropouts

In this paper, we address the issue of the stability of distributed engine control systems under communication constraints and, in particular, for packet dropouts. We propose a control design procedure, labeled decentralized distributed full-authority digital engine control and based on a two-level decentralized control framework. We show that the packet dropping margin, which is a measure of stability robustness under packet dropouts, is largely dependent on the closed-loop controller structure and that, in particular, a block-diagonal structure is more desirable. Thus, we design a controller in a decentralized framework to improve the packet dropping margin. The effect of different mathematical partitioning on the packet dropping margin is studied. The proposed methodology is applied to an F100 gas turbine engine model, which clearly demonstrates the usefulness of decentralization in improving the stability of distributed control under packet dropouts.