Abstract
The Internet's low cost and ubiquity present an attractive option for real-time distributed control of processes on the factory floor. When integrated with the Internet, the LonWorks open control network can give ubiquitous accessibility with the distributed control nature of information on the factory floor. One of the most important points in real-time distributed control of processes is timely response. There are many processes on the factory floor that require timely response. However, the uncertain time delay inherent in the network makes it difficult to guarantee timely response in many cases. Especially, the transmission characteristics of the LonWorks/IP network show a highly stochastic nature. Therefore, the time delay problem has to be resolved to achieve high performance and quality of the real-time distributed control of the process in the LonWorks/IP Virtual Device Network (VDN). It should be properly predicted and compensated. In this paper, a new distributed control scheme that can compensate for the effects of the time delay in the network is proposed. It is based on the PID controller augmented with the Smith predictor and disturbance observer. Designing methods for output feedback filter and disturbance observer are also proposed. Tracking position control experiment of a geared DC Servo motor is performed using the proposed control method. The performance of the proposed controller is compared with that of the Internal Model Controller (IMC) with the Smith predictor. The result shows that the performance is improved and guaranteed by augmenting a PID controller with both the Smith predictor and disturbance observer under the stochastic time delay in the LonWorks/IP VDN.
