Time and Event Driven Control Systems

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Traditional industrial facilities are monitored and controlled through industrial computers, in which time driven*operations are the norm. Digital control is the paradigm for such time driven systems. This digital control paradigm uses a fundamental assumption that all signals and*systems are sampled periodically in time. However, such an assumption is no longer valid in modern*industrial systems because of two reasons. First, integrating new communication and computing technologies generates a new class of systems called cyber-physical systems, in which network protocols and*real-time computer algorithms evolve by events, and are event driven. Second, most existing industrial facilities are still operated by human operators through alarm monitoring systems. Could industrial plants be fully automated, without the*intervention of operators at all? This would require incorporating alarm systems with control*systems; but alarm systems are event driven, violating the periodicity assumption.******The main research objective is to develop a*unified paradigm for analysis and design of hybrid time and event driven control systems. Such systems present tremendous challenges for control engineers and designers*because of the interactions among control, computation, and communication components, and inclusion of both*time and event driven mechanism. The proposed research program covers modeling, state estimation, and control design of time and event driven systems, integration of control and alarm systems, and studying the*properties of importance to both control and monitoring purposes, such as stability, control performance, communication and computing resource usage, fault detection accuracy,*and fault diagnosis capabilities.*******The research problems are complex and challenging, requiring a great deal of innovation and originality to*uncover new solutions which are effective and efficient. Since event driven systems are in general time-varying and nonlinear, traditional frequency-domain based methods are not applicable. The*planned approach would be in general time-domain, using state-space models for continuous-time processes,*time based equations for time and event driven operations, Lyapunov based argument for closed-loop stability*analysis, and optimization tools for analysis and design solutions.*******The proposed research program targets knowledge advance in the field of Control Systems which is relevant to*electrical, chemical, and mechanical Engineering. The novelty and expected significance include: It would address major challenges facing the control systems community, and hopefully impact both the theory and*practice; it would provide control engineers and practitioners with new tools for analysis and synthesis of*cyber-physical systems; finally, it would benefit Canadian industry by engaging in technology- and industry-relevant research student training.***