A decentralized control strategy with an application to the regulation of a set of water reservoirs

A decentralized control strategy for certain complex dynamic systems is given. Complexity of the problem may not necessarily come from the size of the system. Strong nonlinearities, nonclassical information structure and time delays may constitute the source of the complexity. The strategy is: First, solve a coordinator's discrete time problem to obtain the set points, then each subsystem solves its local problem which minimizes the deviation of local states from the trajectories obtained by converting the discrete solution of the coordinator to continuous time. Application of the strategy to the water resources is also discussed.