Decentralized event-based scheduling for shared-resource Networked Control Systems

In this paper, we introduce a decentralized event-triggered scheduling scheme for multi-loop Networked Control Systems (NCSs) in which the individual control loops are coupled through a shared communication channel. The proposed scheduling design combines deterministic and probabilistic attributes to efficiently allocate the limited communication resource among the control loops in an event-based fashion. Based on local error thresholds, each control loop determines whether to compete for the channel access. As a result, control loops with higher transmission priorities are more likely to utilize the channel, which in turn leads to more efficient usage of the limited resource. Each eligible subsystem then attempts to transmit at times specified by local waiting times, which are randomly distributed and local-error dependent. In this manner, the probability of data collisions in the communication channel is reduced. If the channel capacity is reached at some time instants, data packets are dropped. We demonstrate stochastic stability of such NCSs in terms of Lyapunov Stability in Probability (LSP). The numerical results show that our approach improves resource utilization and reduces the networked-induced error variance in comparison with time-triggered, random access, and centralized scheduling policies.