Direct optimal distributed controller design for component swapping modularity with application to ISC

A new approach for designing control systems which possess the property of component swapping modularity is presented. The system is assumed to consist of several “smart” components, which can perform computations, and communicate via bidirectional communication networks. Compared to a previous 3-step design method, the new method proposed here is to design the optimal distributed controllers directly, rather than first designing a centralized controller and then distributing it to the components. To illustrate the approach, an application to optimal controller design for throttle actuator swapping modularity in the automotive idle speed control (ISC) problem is considered. The advantages of the new direct method are twofold. First, the direct method can provide swapping modularity in cases where the 3-step method fails. Second, the direct method can allow one to tradeoff system performance against swapping modularity. The direct method leads to a two-stage optimization problem, which is solved numerically.