An Estimation Algorithm for a Class of Networked Control Systems Using UDP-Like Communication Schemes

In this work we consider a class of networked control systems (NCS) when the control signal is sent to the plant via a UDP-like communication protocol. In this case the controller sends a communication packet to the plant across a lossy network, but the controller does not receive any acknowledgement signal indicating the status of the control packet. Standard observer based estimators assume the estimator has knowledge of what control signal is applied to the plant. Under the UDP-like protocol the controller/estimator does not have explicit knowledge whether the control signals have been applied to the plant or not. We present a simple estimation and control algorithm that consists of a state and mode observer as well as a constraint on the control signal sent to the plant. For the class of systems considered, discrete time LTI plants where at least one of the states that is directly affected by the input is also part of the measurement vector, the estimator is able to recover the fate of the control packet from the measurement at the next timestep and exhibit better performance than other naive schemes. For single-input-single-output (SISO) systems we are able to show convergence properties of the estimation error and closed loop stability. Simulations are provided to demonstrate the algorithm and show its effectiveness.