CPS: Synergy: Collaborative Research: Holistic Control and Management of Industrial Wireless Processes

无线传感器-致动器网络（WSAN）被设计为使用物理上分布的无线节点集合和多跳协议来收集和传播信息。由于部署成本低、健壮性和配置灵活性，WSAN在工业自动化和制造应用中得到迅速采用。虽然工业WSAN的早期成功集中在监控应用上，但当WSAN用于反馈控制应用时，存在显著的优势，也存在挑战。在控制应用程序中部署WSAN需要仔细设计和测试其网络配置和所采用的控制算法，因为预期和观察到的延迟和可靠性之间的差异可能会导致不期望的行为。该项目创建了一个整体的方法来设计和操作工业无线过程控制系统的基础上，新的闭环之间的相互作用的控制器的工业过程和WSAN管理器。在这个新的闭环中，控制器使用工业过程的预测模型来估计和比较与不同网络配置相关联的控制性能损失。相应地，WSAN管理器评估其内部链路的质量，并调整网络配置以优化控制器性能。该建议的核心是一个整体控制器，除了为物理过程选择输入信号外，还从有限的选项集中选择网络配置，目标是提供安全和性能保证。整体控制器使用网络状态和物理过程状态的估计来决定适当的网络配置，同时牢记与调度和路由变化相关的固有成本和延迟。反过来，WSAN管理器将实现与整体控制器通信的新接口、用于高效网络重新配置的新机制以及用于估计作为不同配置和环境条件的函数的信息传递的概率的新观察器。所提出的整体控制器和网络管理器之间的反馈配置，使工业过程控制应用程序，对物理工厂和无线网络的干扰是有弹性的。此外，在大规模网络中的实施，使使用建议的双向中间件，旨在实时传输信息之间的整体控制器和网络管理器，只暴露每个系统的其余部分的相关功能。该项目的成果将改变工业无线过程控制系统的设计、部署和操作方式，同时建立一类新的自适应无线控制系统。

Wireless sensor-actuator networks (WSANs) are designed to collect and disseminate information using a physically distributed collection of wireless nodes and multi-hop protocols. WSANs are gaining rapid adoption in industrial automation and manufacturing applications due to their low deployment cost, robustness, and configuration flexibility. While the early success of industrial WSANs has been focused on monitoring applications, there are significant advantages, and also challenges, when WSANs are used in feedback control applications. Deployments of WSANs in control applications require careful design and testing of their network configurations and of the control algorithms employed, since undesired behaviors can arise from differences between expected and observed latency and reliability. This project creates a holistic approach to design and operate industrial wireless process control systems based on new closed-loop interactions between the controller of the industrial process and the WSAN manager. In this new closed loop, the controller, using a prediction model of the industrial process, estimates and compares the control performance loss associated to different network configurations. Accordingly, the WSAN manager estimates the quality of its internal links and adapts the network configuration to optimize the controller performance.At the core of this proposal is a holistic controller, which besides choosing the input signal for the physical process, selects a network configuration from a finite set of options with the goal of providing safety and performance guarantees. The holistic controller uses estimations of network status and physical process states to decide an appropriate network configuration, keeping in mind the inherent cost and delay associated to changes in scheduling and routing. The WSAN manager will, in turn, implement a new interface to communicate with the holistic controller, new mechanisms for efficient network reconfiguration, and new observers to estimate the probability of information delivery as a function of the different configurations and environmental conditions. The proposed feedback configuration between holistic controller and network manager enables industrial process control applications that are resilient against disturbances to both the physical plant and the wireless network. Furthermore, implementation in large-scale networks is enabled using a proposed bidirectional middleware, designed to transfer information between holistic controllers and network managers in real-time, exposing only the relevant features of each to the rest of the system. The results of this project will transform the way in which industrial wireless process control systems are designed, deployed, and operated, while establishing a new class of adaptive wireless control systems.