Overview and Mission

A five year research effort involving a multiuniversity, multidisciplinary team of researchers is aimed at developing the mathematical foundations needed to support the integration of control and communications technologies. The research will primarily build on established results in control and estimation, but will also draw from modulation and coding theory, and work in computer science addressing the design of protocols. We plan to investigate the modeling, analysis, design, and control of communicating networked systems of sensors and actuators on fixed and mobile platforms. The principal focus will be on theoretical foundations, but the work will be supported by a carefully designed experimental effort involving MEMS device arrays and other testbed systems. The senior researchers involved with this project have extensive experience spanning applied mechanics, control engineering, communications engineering, and the design and fabrication of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS).

The unifying goal of the Center is to develop the foundations of mathematical modeling, design and analysis that will be needed to support the convergence of control and communications technologies. One of the principal thrusts is aimed at understanding the control of large scale device arrays which are interconnected through an appropriate communications network. Central issues include coupling between channel capacity in the network and the quality of performance at both the individual device and aggregate system level. The aim is to understand the role of channel state information in the design stable feedback control laws. Applications of interest are frequently associated with dynamically varying networks where channel capacities may become highly constrained---requiring that attention be paid to the coding and modulation of feedback control signals. Research is also being conducted to develop control of access schemes aimed at the efficient sharing of channels bandwidth for the purpose of optimizing closed loop control performance measures. Quality of Service (QoS) measures are being developed with associated admission control strategies.