DFG-Priority Programme 1305
"Control Theory of Digitally Networked Dynamical Systems"
Control theory develops methods for the modelling, the analysis and the control of dynamical systems by using the principle of feedback. One of its characteristical tasks is to measure a specific variable, compare it with a nominal value and change the performance of the system so that the variable follows the prescribed value. Hitherto the required data exchange for the implementation of feedback control could only be managed in a wired way.
Modern means of communication lays the foundations to connect different elements of the system like sensors, actuators or even whole subsystems to a digital network. By the implementation of wireless connections over a wide area new control laws can be realised that would have been much more complex to realise in a wired network, if even possible. Furthermore, measured variables and control variables can now be transmitted to the controller from nearly every position of a technological plant.
Such control structures cannot be handled with traditional methods because of two reasons. On the one hand, the event-driven mode of operation of digital networked systems violates the presumption that data is processed and transmitted with a constant sample rate. On the other hand, the structure of the network is changing since the data link adjusts itself to the needs and the technical constraints.
The goal of this interdisciplinary Priority Programme is to develop a control theory for the modelling, analysis and design of future digitally networked dynamical systems.