Optimal and Robust Scheduling for Networked Control Systems [Bookshelf]

The book under review is unique in that it blends tools known from optimal and robust control theory to design performance-oriented, robust, and reliable NCSs with time-deterministic behavior. The problem of computation complexity of offline optimization is solved through fast stochastic algorithms, while the appropriate network configuration is given through measures of robust performance. The authors also provide practical examples driven mainly from the automotive field to show the effectiveness of their approaches. The book is organized in ten chapters, and most chapters represent results published by the authors in scientific journals. For readers with a basic grasp of optimal control, robust control, and communication theory, this books presents a foundation for designing reliable, optimal, and robust controllers across networks. The remarkable points of this book include the development of an engineering tool for NCSs with guaranteed performance and robustness and that the design techniques are applied to hardware-in-the-loop automotive control systems. The material is successfully presented in a form that is pleasant to read. Control practitioners and engineers will be motivated by this blend of theory and practice to enhance the results while also dealing with new challenges that will arise, such as developing plug-and-play model-free controllers that self-heal and solve the optimization problems online, while also attenuating any disturbances entering the network. Two flaws of the book are that the authors expect a certain degree of mathematical sophistication from the reader, but, at the same time, some mathematical derivations seem unclear. The authors should have provided more introductory chapters or appendices. Moreover, they should make available the Matlab code that they used to generate the simulations.