Reliability and Speed, Major Performance Criteria of Distributed Control

While the advantages of Distributed Control are numerous and prevalent, its frontiers are felt, in principal, in the constraints of its Data Communication structure (network). These constraints fall into two categories: technical limits and affordability. They result in performance weakness. That is why the assessment of major criteria reliability and speed is vital for a sound conceptual design. The paper defines the constituents and ground rules of these criteria. The reliability and speed are unveiled as the investigation follows the technical aspects of distributed control hierarchical levels and communications layers.