Integrated control over software defined network

This paper mainly investigates an integrated control system operating under the software defined network (SDN) protocol. SDN is a new networking paradigm in which network intelligence is centrally administered and network control data and decisions are communicated via channels that are physically separated from those conveying user data. Hence, under the SDN architecture, it is relatively easy to set up multiple flows for transmitting sampled state information to a decision-maker and control signals to an actuator for each individual application. While each flow may suffer random transmission delay, the first arriving control signal is applicable if its transmission delay is within the pre-defined application time. The affiliated integrated control system can be modelled as a stochastic system with transmission delays and packet dropouts. In this paper, we focus on the stabilization problem of such a system and propose a set of necessary and sufficient stabilizing conditions for it. Moreover, for the scalar case, we derive the maximum sampling period that can guarantee stabilization in terms of the probability distributions of the transmission delays. Results in this paper find application in controlling autonomous vehicles over an open access communication network for the purposes of remote site recognition or security control, such as evader pursuit.