Modular design of jointly optimal controllers and forwarding policies for wireless control

Abstract: We consider the joint design of packet forwarding policies and controllers for wireless control loops where sensor measurements are sent to the controller over an unreliable and energy-constrained multi-hop wireless network. For fixed sampling rate of the sensor, the co-design problem separates into two well-defined and independent subproblems: transmission scheduling for maximizing the deadline-constrained reliability and optimal control under packet loss. We develop optimal and implementable solutions for these subproblems and show that the optimally co-designed system can be efficiently found. Numerical examples highlight the many trade-offs involved and demonstrate the power of our approach.