Self-organization of reconfigurable protocol stack for networked control systems

In networked control systems (NCS), the control performance depends on not only the control algorithm but also the communication protocol stack. The performance degradation introduced by the heterogeneous and dynamic communication environment has intensified the need for the reconfigurable protocol stack. In this paper, a novel architecture for the reconfigurable protocol stack is proposed, which is a unified specification of the protocol components and service interfaces supporting both static and dynamic reconfiguration for existing industrial communication standards. Within the architecture, a triple-level self-organization structure is designed to manage the dynamic reconfiguration procedure based on information exchanges inside and outside the protocol stack. Especially, the protocol stack can be self-adaptive to various environment and system requirements through the reconfiguration of working mode, routing and scheduling table. Finally, the study on the protocol of dynamic address management is conducted for the system of controller area network (CAN). The results show the efficiency of our self-organizing architecture for the implementation of a reconfigurable protocol stack.     

长时延NCS的结构特性与建模

研究网络控制系统的关键问题包括两个方面:控制算法和网络结构,其中网络结构决定了系统可靠性和稳定性,系统的实时性也取决于网络结构(包括拓扑结构和协议结构),建立网络结构模型是研究NCS的前提,文章介绍了典型的网络结构和结构抽象化描述方法,并分析了针对长时延的数学模型,该成果对研究NCS有很重要的意义。     

Input-output stability properties of networked control systems

Results on input-output L/sub p/ stability of networked control systems (NCS) are presented for a large class of network scheduling protocols. It is shown that static protocols and a recently considered dynamical protocol called try-once-discard belong to this class. Our results provide a unifying framework for generating new scheduling protocols that preserve L/sub p/ stability properties of the system if a design parameter is chosen sufficiently small. The most general version of our results can be used to treat NCS with data packet dropouts. The model of NCS and, in particular, of the scheduling protocol that we use appears to be novel and we believe that it will be useful in further study of these systems. The proof technique we use is based on the small gain theorem and it lends itself to an easy interpretation. We prove that our results are guaranteed to be better than existing results in the literature and we illustrate this via an example of a batch reactor.     

基于Matlab环境的网络控制系统仿真平台

网络控制系统NCS(NetworkedControlSystem)是一种分布式实时控制系统,网络控制系统的设计与研究涉及系统控制与网络调度两个方面,目前集成的控制与调度仿真工具很少。该文对网络控制系统的仿真平台进行了分析,给出了Matlab构建的网络控制系统框架,分析了网络控制系统仿真模型,介绍了一种基于Matlab的网络控制系统的理想仿真工具TrueTime。     

Developing dynamic‐reconfigurable communication protocol stacks using Java

This paper proposes the development of a dynamic‐reconfigurable protocol stack, which allows the programmer to create, to remove, and to replace protocol modules during their operation. Moreover, this protocol stack also aims to preserve the module state, such as the data structures that manage the existing connections. To achieve these goals, a Java‐based component framework is developed so that the programmers are able to implement their components under the proposed framework. This framework can dynamically reconfigure the components at a safe period and can help the components transfer their states, and the dynamic reconfiguration is transparent to the user application running on top of the stack. To demonstrate the component framework, a TCP component is implemented. While maintaining active connections for the user application, the TCP component is able to be dynamically replaced by another version. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于网络控制系统的水下自主航行器制导系统结构

在现代控制系统中,网络控制系统可以用最小成本实现柔性系统,该柔性系统可以完成包括功能可重新配置的许多任务;网络控制系统采用公用的总线结构,使得系统具有更加有效的灵活功能、更好的资源共享、降低系统的维护成本,网络控制系统的最大问题是由于网络而产生的时延和数据包的丢失;研究了基于网络控制原理的水下自主航行器制导系统,详细分析了水下自主航行器网络控制系统的稳定性问题和基于时间触发的TTCAN高层协议;论文旨在通过对水下自主航行器网络控制系统结构的研究,指出其结构的意义和进一步的研究领域.     

SCHEDULING AND CONTROL CO‐DESIGN FOR DELAY COMPENSATION IN THE NETWORKED CONTROL SYSTEM

The networked control system (NCS) is currently receiving increasing attention from researchers. Researches on this subject, however, have not considered the co‐design of network quality of service (QoS) and control quality of performance (QoP). This paper proposes a novel NCS design framework based on scheduling and control co‐design to compensate for random network‐induced delays. In the framework, a scheduling algorithm used to find the optimal sampling regions of control loops performs rough adjustment and guarantees the network QoS, while a novel adaptive fuzzy PID controller is designed to perform accurate adjustment to guarantee the control QoP. Practical application results obtained with a multi‐loop NCS show that the framework can ensure satisfactory performance due to its robustness against network uncertainty.     

A market-oriented hierarchical scheduling strategy in cloud workflow systems

A cloud workflow system is a type of platform service which facilitates the automation of distributed applications based on the novel cloud infrastructure. One of the most important aspects which differentiate a cloud workflow system from its other counterparts is the market-oriented business model. This is a significant innovation which brings many challenges to conventional workflow scheduling strategies. To investigate such an issue, this paper proposes a market-oriented hierarchical scheduling strategy in cloud workflow systems. Specifically, the service-level scheduling deals with the Task-to-Service assignment where tasks of individual workflow instances are mapped to cloud services in the global cloud markets based on their functional and non-functional QoS requirements; the task-level scheduling deals with the optimisation of the Task-to-VM (virtual machine) assignment in local cloud data centres where the overall running cost of cloud workflow systems will be minimised given the satisfaction of QoS constraints for individual tasks. Based on our hierarchical scheduling strategy, a package based random scheduling algorithm is presented as the candidate service-level scheduling algorithm and three representative metaheuristic based scheduling algorithms including genetic algorithm (GA), ant colony optimisation (ACO), and particle swarm optimisation (PSO) are adapted, implemented and analysed as the candidate task-level scheduling algorithms. The hierarchical scheduling strategy is being implemented in our SwinDeW-C cloud workflow system and demonstrating satisfactory performance. Meanwhile, the experimental results show that the overall performance of ACO based scheduling algorithm is better than others on three basic measurements: the optimisation rate on makespan, the optimisation rate on cost and the CPU time.     

网络控制系统的性能优化研究

网络控制系统(NCS)是基于网络的分布式控制系统。文章结合网络调度和系统控制,以网络的可调度性和系统稳定性为约束条件,给出了NCS的性能优化模型,并利用基于Matlab/Simulink的实时控制系统仿真软件包True Time对其进行了仿真。仿真结果表明:该方法既提高了控制系统的性能,又优化了网络调度性能,提高了网络资源的利用率。     

Utility-based QoS optimisation strategy for multi-criteria scheduling on the grid

The paper presents quality of service (QoS) optimisation strategy for multi-criteria scheduling on the grid, based on a mathematical QoS model and a distributed iterative algorithm. Three QoS criteria are considered, namely payment, deadline and reliability, which are formulated as utility function. The optimisation problem is split into two parts: task optimisation performed on behalf of the user and resource optimisation performed on behalf of the grid. The strategy employs three types of agents: task agents responsible for task optimisation, computation resource and network resource agents responsible for resource optimisation. The agents apply economic models for optimisation purposes. Dynamic programming is used to optimise the total system utility function in terms of an iterative algorithm. The objective of multi-criteria scheduling is to maximise the global utility of the system. This paper proposes an iterative scheduling algorithm that is used to perform QoS optimisation-based multi-criteria scheduling. The proposed QoS optimisation-based multi-criteria scheduling problem solution has been practically examined by simulation experiments.     

基于μclinux 的EPA 通信协议栈

EPA标准是由我国提出的用于提高工业以太网实时通信性能的系统规范。在介绍EPA通信协议模型基础上,对通信协议栈的应用层和通信调度管理实体进行了模块化设计,对协议栈的任务进行了详细划分。在设计过程中,对μ clinux系统的硬实时性和内存利用率进行了重点考虑。经实验测试,该通信协议栈可以正常工作,并取得了较理想的效果。     

Dynamic objects: Supporting fast and easy run-time reconfiguration in FPGAs

Partial reconfiguration capabilities must be exploited to obtain the maximum benefits from dynamically reconfigurable FPGAs. Partial reconfiguration process management still faces a set of open problems that have thus far made it impossible to take full advantage of partial and dynamic reconfiguration. The work presented in this article proposes a novel architecture, development workflow, and modelling approach for dynamically reconfigurable systems management using an object model that offers a global solution. This solution is built on a system-level middleware that provides the infrastructure and tools for communication between different components in heterogeneous embedded systems. Several experiments were performed to test and evaluate each part of our proposed solution, and the obtained results are presented. These results demonstrate the excellent performance of our proposed solution.     

Genetic algorithm-based dynamic reconfiguration for networked control system

This paper represents a genetic algorithm (GA) based dynamic reconfiguration for networked control systems (NCS) with the objective of minimizing network time-delay. With the development of NCS, it is become more and more important for them to have the minimum time-delay and the ability of dynamic reconfiguration, which can accommodate the changes rapidly, smartly and flexibly. And it is important to find a routing algorithm, which is quicker to reduce the time to update the router and decrease the reconfiguration time as much as possible. In this paper, based on NCS, we discuss the process of GA with specialized encoding, initialization, selection, crossover and mutation. A specialized repair function is used to improve performance. In addition, experiment results are given to illuminate that GA can improve the performance of the NCS. This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.60674081 and No.60574088).     

Patient flow modelling and performance analysis of healthcare delivery processes in hospitals: A review and reflections

Analysis of hospital processes is essential for development of improved methods, policies and decision tools for overall performance improvement of the hospital system. Amidst the current scenario of continuously increasing healthcare costs and scarcity of resources, optimal utilization of resources without hampering the quality of care has gained importance in any country. Modelling, analysis and management of patient flows, in this context, plays a key role in performance analysis and improvement of hospital processes as appropriate modelling of patient flows may help healthcare managers make decisions related to capacity planning, resource allocation and scheduling, appointment scheduling and for making necessary changes in the process of care. The concept of patient flow and its modelling has gained much attention in healthcare management literature over past few decades. In this paper, the existing approaches pertaining to modelling of patient flows in hospital systems have been classified and critically appraised focussing on the recent advancements in order to identify future research avenues. A generic framework for patient flow modelling and performance analysis of hospital systems that may serve as a guide for the practitioners dealing with similar kinds of problems to improve healthcare delivery has also been provided.     

Simulation of Generalised Semi-Markov Processes based on Graph Transformation Systems

Stochastic Graph Transformation combines graphical modelling of various software artefacts with stochastic analysis techniques. Existing approaches are restricted to processes with exponential time distribution. Such processes are sufficient for modelling a significant class of stochastic systems, however there are interesting systems which cannot be specified appropriately in such a framework. In several cases one needs to consider non-exponential time distributions. This paper proposes a stochastic model based on graph transformation with general probability distributions. This model is well suited to represent concurrency and performance aspects of architecture reconfiguration. It is also possible to apply Monte Carlo simulation techniques in order to analyse behaviour of complex stochastic systems. The new model is implemented and used to simulate simple networks.     

Autonomic resource contention‐aware scheduling

The complexity of computing systems introduces a few issues and challenges such as poor performance and high energy consumption. In this paper, we first define and model resource contention metric for high performance computing workloads as a performance metric in scheduling algorithms and systems at the highest level of resource management stack to address the main issues in computing systems. Second, we propose a novel autonomic resource contention‐aware scheduling approach architected on various layers of the resource management stack. We establish the relationship between distributed resource management layers in order to optimize resource contention metric. The simulation results confirm the novelty of our approach.Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于网络控制系统的水下航行器制导系统结构

研究基于网络控制原理的水下航行器制导系统结构,详细分析了基于时间触发的TFCAN高层协议在水下航行器网络控制系统中的应用;针对目前水下航行器制导系统的控制现状,提出基于NCS的水下航行器制导系统一般性结构和设计方法,有效地解决了水下航行器制导系统中信息传送的实时性和信息共享性问题,同时论证了水下航行器网络控制系统中影响其系统稳定性的时延问题：论文旨在通过对水下航行器网络控制系统结构的研究,指出其结构的意义和进一步的研究领域。     

具有通信约束的网络化控制系统容错控制研究

Implementing a control system over a communication network induces inevitable time delays that may degrade performance and even cause instability. One of the most effective ways to reduce the negative effect of delays on the performance of networked control system (NCS) is to reduce network traffic. In this paper, adjustable deadbands are explored as a solution to reduce network traffic in NCS. A method of fault-tolerant control of networked control system is presented, which takes into account system response as well as network traffic. The integrity design for a kind of NCS with sensor failures and actuator failures is analyzed based on robust fault-tolerant control theory and information scheduling. After detailed theoretical analysis, the paper also provides the simulation results, which further validate the proposed scheme.     

OPNET环境下集成服务模型的设计与实现

建模仿真是研究集成服务模型的最好手段之一。论文介绍了集成服务模型体系下RSVP信令的工作机制以及协议结构的设计与实现。在OPNET仿真环境下设计了集成服务原型系统并研究了模型的QoS机理。通过对仿真结果的分析,证实了协议与模型设计的正确性。