Design of multiple actuator-link control systems with packet dropouts

This paper presents a novel design strategy for networked control systems, where a centralized controller needs to divide its attention between various actuators. Communication is via an unreliable network affected by data-dropouts and which allows access to only one actuator node at a time. To achieve good performance, control and network protocol are co-designed and signal predictions are sent to buffered actuator nodes. By using methods from predictive control theory, we show how closed loop stability in the presence of data-dropouts can be ensured.