CAREER: Scalable and Optimal Co-Design of Control and Communication Protocols in Cyber-physical Systems

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Intellectual Merit:Cyber-physical systems (CPS) - complex dynamical systems interacting across communication networks - are the next generation of engineering systems, with applications spanning critical infrastructure control, tele-medicine, traffic control, advanced automotive systems, process control, energy conservation, environmental monitoring, and distributed robotics. Current frameworks for designing the algorithms for controlling the dynamical systems on one hand, and the communication and networking protocols on the other, are disparate and insufficient to guarantee reliability, scalability and efficiency in such systems. In response to this need, this project proposes a scalable and optimal approach for the co-design of control and networking protocols in CPS. In particular, by using a fusion of techniques from control and networking, the project will design control-aware communication protocols, controllers that explicitly consider network constraints and algorithms to optimally allocate communication resources for distributed control and estimation.Broader Impact:Cyber-physical systems are the foundation of the 21st-century industry. By addressing a fundamental bottleneck in their design, this research will directly impact the society in profound ways. A new inter-disciplinary graduate course, an update of the undergraduate control laboratory course through new experiments and new projects for the EE senior thesis project course are part of a curriculum development plan to incorporate such perspectives into education. Concrete plans to motivate domestic high school students to pursue engineering careers and to increase the participation of minority and female students in engineering are also outlined.