Seminar Details
2015-02-17 (14.00) : Event-triggered Control: Performance, Robustness and Zeno-freeness
At Euler building (A002)
Organized by Mathematical Engineering
Speaker :
Maurice Heemels (Eindhoven University of Technology)
Abstract :
Recent developments in computer and communication technologies are leading to an increasingly networked and wireless world. In the context of networked control systems this raises new challenging questions, especially when the computation, communication and energy resources of the system are limited. To efficiently use the available resources it is desirable to limit the control actions to instances when the system really needs attention. Unfortunately, the classical time-triggered control paradigm is based on performing sensing and actuation actions periodically in time (irrespective of the state of the system) rather than when the system needs attention. Therefore, it is of interest to consider event-triggered control as an alternative paradigm, as it seems much more natural to trigger control actions by well-designed events involving the systems state, output or other available information, i.e. bringing feedback in the sensing and actuation processes.
In this talk, we discuss the basics of event-triggered control with a focus on Lp-gain performance, robustness and Zeno-freeness in the resulting closed-loop systems. Stability, performance and robustness are important control-related properties, while Zeno-freeness is essential from an implementation point of view and the side of utilization of the computation, communication and energy resources. In particular, the existence of a positive lower bound on the inter-event times implies so-called Zeno-freeness (a term stemming from hybrid systems in which Zenoness refers to the occurrence of an infinite number of events in a finite-length time interval). The challenges and recent advances regarding the design of event-triggered controllers that combine the features of robustness, performance and Zeno-freeness will be discussed. Real measurements obtained from an experimental inverted pendulum setup and from a platoon of vehicles complement the theoretical results.