Platform for Emulating Networked Control Systems in Laboratory Environments

This paper discusses a platform for prototyping control schemes for networked control systems (NCS). The platform provides tools for simulating various networks in connection with real processes. The paper focuses on an extension to the MoCoNet platform [8], which is a unique environment for monitoring and controlling processes over the Internet in real-time. MoCoNet also provides capability of emulating different networks via network simulation. The platform is extremely valuable for control design in NCS, because the real processes can be first run over simulated networks and different network congestion scenarios can be experimented. This paper extends the MoCoNet system by integrating it with the well known and widely accepted network simulator [9], Ns2. The paper discusses various aspects of this novel integration of Ns2 with realtime operated control systems. The extension allows users of the MoCoNet system to test the control algorithms for NCS with numerous wired/wireless technologies available in Ns2. Furthermore, the paper discusses the development of a simple Java based GUI that is used to create virtual networks in Ns2.