Networked feedback control under communication constraints

This paper investigates feedback stabilization problems for discrete-time linear time-invariant systems over a digital, wireless communication network. The insertion of such network inevitably leads to random network delay, packet dropout, and limited data rates. The packet dropout process of the channel is modeled as an independent and identically distributed process. For this case, we examine the networked feedback control problem, present a sufficient condition for stabilization, and derive a lower bound on the data rate, above which there exists a quantization, coding, and control scheme to stabilize the unstable plant in the mean square sense. An illustrative example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.