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

智能优势：信息物理系统（CPS）——跨通信网络交互的复杂动态系统——是下一代工程系统，应用范围涵盖关键基础设施控制、远程医疗、交通控制、先进汽车系统、过程控制、节能、环境监测和分布式机器人。目前用于控制动态系统的算法设计框架，以及通信和网络协议的设计框架，都是不同的，不足以保证此类系统的可靠性、可扩展性和效率。针对这一需求，本项目提出了一种可扩展的优化方法，用于CPS中的控制和网络协议的协同设计。特别是，通过使用控制和网络技术的融合，该项目将设计控制感知通信协议，明确考虑网络约束的控制器和算法，以最佳方式分配通信资源，用于分布式控制和估计。更广泛的影响：信息物理系统是21世纪工业的基础。通过解决其设计中的一个基本瓶颈，这项研究将以深刻的方式直接影响社会。一个新的跨学科研究生课程，通过新的实验对本科控制实验课程进行更新，并为电子电气高级论文项目课程提供新的项目，这些都是课程发展计划的一部分，以将这些观点纳入教育中。此外，还提出了鼓励国内高中学生从事工科事业和提高少数民族和女性学生参与工科的具体计划。

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.