Multi-nodewireless fault control for overcoming sensor breakdown

Control systems with long distance sensor and actuator wiring have the problem of high system cost and increased sensor noise. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) based control systems are an alternative solution. However, WSNs based control systems also encounter problems, such as possible data loss, irregular sampling period due to the uncertainty of the wireless channel and possibility of sensor breakdown due to the increased complexity of the overall control system. In this paper, a wireless fault control system was designed and implemented to perform the vibration suppression. Embedded microcontroller based wireless control systems are different from regular computer based control systems due to their limited speed and computational power. Control algorithm designs were described to demonstrate this prototype. The positive position feedback was employed as the control law. System model based compensation was used on the multi-node wireless control system to solve the problems of data loss and sensor breakdown. Experimental results validated the proposed wireless fault control algorithm.