Some scaling properties of large distributed control systems

Understanding the role of communication in networked control systems has become an important topic of study. In this paper we examine conditions on a communication network that insure observability and stabilizability of a control system. We examine both wired networks and wireless networks. For the wired network we give general necessary and sufficient conditions on the link capacities to insure the control objectives can be achieved. For the wireless network we discuss scaling properties and their effects on large control systems.