On limit cycles in event-based control systems

Event-based control is a promising alternative to time-triggered control, especially for systems with limited computation and communication capacities. In the paper, the architecture of a general structure for event-based control is presented. The resulting system has many interesting properties. For instance, a constant load disturbance will typically make the process output oscillate according to a stable limit cycle. Necessary conditions for the limit cycle are given and its local stability is analyzed. Finally, a simple way to achieve integral action is proposed.