Wireless networked control system coordination agent.

摘要

Wireless networked control systems have begun to gain acceptance during the last decade, largely due to the increased flexibility and lower costs they promise to provide. The pace of application has been held back, however, by the reluctance of industry to make the accommodations necessary to allow wireless paths to be incorporated in process control loops, thus limiting the potential applications and benefits of wireless systems. The problem is that there are conflicts between maintaining the performance (and particularly stability) of a control loop, which can be degraded by slow data rates and delays in a wireless path, and the usual objectives in managing a wireless sensor network, namely freedom to configure the network to maximize efficiency and to adjust data rates in the network to conserve energy consumption in the network nodes, which are very often battery powered.;This conflict has been addressed by developing a wireless networked control system coordination agent, as part of an intelligent supervisory control system, which will grant the wireless sensor network gateway as much latitude in meeting its objectives as possible while maintaining the performance of control loops that incorporate wireless paths.