Event-triggered broadcasting across distributed networked control systems

This paper examines event-triggered broadcasting of state information in distributed control systems implemented over wireless communication networks. Event-triggering requires a subsystem to only broadcast its state information when the local state error exceeds a given threshold. The paper designs an event triggering scheme that assures asymptotic stability of the entire networked system. The results apply to networks of linear time-invariant systems. We derive a lower bound on the estimated time to next broadcast. Simulation results show that event triggering allows a subsystem to adjust its broadcast periods to the amount of activity in its immediate neighborhood. Simulation results also show that event-triggering’s average broadcast period scales well with system size. These results are significant because they show how one might stabilize distributed control systems over ad hoc wireless networks without necessarily requiring a high degree of synchronization within the communication network.