Optimization of the Communication System for Networked Control Systems

Networked Control Systems are control systems, where the feedback loop is closed by a communication system. Within the past decades, the effects of the properties of the communication system, like loss, delay, or bandwidth constraints, on the control performance have been studied thoroughly. Since the properties of the communication system depend on the design of the communication system and its usage, the goal of this thesis is to work towards a joint design of the controller and the communication system for networked control systems. To achieve this goal, the thesis builds upon previous works from the field of networked control systems, where controller design methods for a communication system with given properties are developed, but takes into account that these properties depend on the design of the communication system and its usage. Based on well known ideas from communication theory, several methods to improve the control performance by optimizing the communication system are presented.