Interference Induced Games in Networked Control Systems and a Class of Dual Control Solutions

Abstract Networked control systems must use communication links between control hubs and distributed components, possibly both to observe component states, and to send control commands. We consider a model of a CDMA based communication and control system where the power sent from the components to the base station, acting as the control hub, is proportional to their (scalar) state, and in turn, the base station sends back the required control commands to the components. The systems are linear, and commands are constrained to be linear, possibly time varying feedback laws on current and a limited set of recent measurements. However, the individual measurements as decoded by the base station include interference terms from the set of all other components, and this inadvertently creates an interference induced game situation. The consequence is that controls have dual effects: they steer individual systems, but they can also help create additional interference. We propose an algorithm which accounts for a combination of control and estimation costs to compute symmetric Nash equilibria if they exist.