SGER: Event-triggered control over sensor/actuator wireless networks

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Objectives:This proposal represents a research effort towards the integration of sensing, computation and actuation over wireless networks. Although current trends in wireless network research focus on sensing, the natural next step is to consider actuation, thereby transcending the ``passive'' role of wireless networks towards an ``active'' role where information is collected, processed and consumed within the network. One of the major difficulties faced when performing actuation over wireless networks is that a constant rate of data needs to flow from sensors to actuators. As communication is energy expensive and network nodes have small batteries, this constant rate of data quickly depletes the existing energy resources and severely limits the life span of applications.Intellectual Merit:This project explores a different paradigm to perform actuation over wireless networks. Instead of reading the sensors, computing feedback control laws and updating the actuators in a periodic fashion, as it has been done in the past 30 years in control engineering, information is transmitted and actuators are updated only when necessary. This new paradigm, termed event-triggered control, guarantees desired levels of control performance while drastically reducing communication and thus energy utilization.Broader Impact:The proposed event-triggered paradigm greatly increases the life span of applications by reducing communication. Therefore, this project will enable several different kinds of applications, currently hampered by small energy reserves of network nodes, such as mechanized agricultural irrigation, reconfigurable factory automation, future HVAC systems, etc. The project also aims at involving undergraduate students in the validation of the proposed techniques thus contributing to increase the number of domestic students pursuing graduate degrees in science and engineering.