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Computing over Unreliable Communication Networks

  • Chapter
Information and Control in Networks

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences ((LNCIS,volume 450))

Abstract

In this chapter, we take the unifying view of systems interacting over communication networks as distributed computing systems and propose to study them as networked control systems. Since averaging is central operation to much science and engineering, we first consider the problem of distributed averaging over unreliable networks. We point out that a popular and well-behaved algorithm can instead generate a collective global complex behavior when the inter-agent communication happens over unreliable links. To mitigate the effects of the unreliable information exchange, we propose a new distributed averaging algorithm robust to noise and intermittent communication. The algorithm and the control perspective are the basis for the development of new distributed optimization systems that we can analyze and design as networked control systems. In particular, we apply a newly developed networked controller design method to design an improved ad-hoc networked distributed least square algorithm. The approach applies to multi-agent cooperative applications and opens up several directions of research.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Note that having \(D_{i}^{\eta u}=0\), and \(D_{i}^{\eta\nu} = 0 \; \forall i\) assures that the feedback interconnection of P and N is well-posed.

  2. 2.

    More general dynamical models can be studied [12].

  3. 3.

    Note that the input and output partitions of the controller have to match the output and input partitions of the interconnected plant, while the state partition is not fixed.

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Acknowledgements

This research has been supported by NSF grants ECS-0093950, ECS-0524689 ECS-0901846, ECS-1239319.

This research was supported by LCCC—Linnaeus Grant VR 2007-8646, Swedish Research Council.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA

    Nicola Elia & Andalam Satya Mohan Vamsi

  2. Cummins Inc., Columbus, IN, USA

    Jing Wang

Authors
  1. Nicola Elia
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  2. Jing Wang
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  3. Andalam Satya Mohan Vamsi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nicola Elia .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Automatic Control, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Giacomo Como

  2. Department of Automatic Control, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Bo Bernhardsson

  3. Department of Automatic Control, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Anders Rantzer

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Elia, N., Wang, J., Vamsi, A.S.M. (2014). Computing over Unreliable Communication Networks. In: Como, G., Bernhardsson, B., Rantzer, A. (eds) Information and Control in Networks. Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences, vol 450. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02150-8_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02150-8_8

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