Robust Control of Networked Systems: Buffering, Control Design and Application

This paper aims to further exploit the potential of sliding mode control algorithms in perturbed buffered networked control systems with an additional goal to reduce the time delay introduced by the buffer. To overcome the problem of unknown round trip times which result in a system with variable unknown input delays, a specific compensation approach is proposed. Consequently, the existing networked control algorithm based on a discretized version of the supertwisting algorithm can be appropriately modified. The performance of the proposed control strategy is evaluated in simulation as well as using a real-world application. Both reveal a superior improvement in accuracy. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the delay resulting from the proposed buffering mechanism is significantly reduced in comparison to the existing approaches available in literature, where a constant (worst-case) round trip time is ensured.