Sequence-based control for networked control systems based on virtual control inputs

In this paper, we address the problem of controlling a system over an unreliable UDP-like network that is affected by time-varying delays and randomly occurring packet losses. A major challenge of this setup is that the controller just has uncertain information about the control inputs actually applied by the actuator. The key idea of this work is to model the uncertain control inputs by random variables, the so-called virtual control inputs, which are characterized by discrete probability density functions. Subject to this probabilistic description, a novel, easy to implement sequence-based control approach is proposed that extends any given state feedback controller designed without consideration of the network-induced disturbances. The high performance of the proposed controller is demonstrated by means of Monte Carlo simulation runs with an inverted pendulum on a cart.