Link Failure Detection in Multi-hop Control Networks

TL;DR

This paper addresses the challenge of detecting link failures in multi-hop control networks by establishing conditions on plant and communication protocols, and offers a design methodology for network topology and scheduling.

Contribution

It provides necessary and sufficient conditions for link failure detection and a systematic approach to design network parameters to meet these conditions.

Findings

Characterized conditions for link failure detection

Developed a methodology for network design to ensure detectability

Applicable to wireless multi-hop control networks

Abstract

A Multi-hop Control Network (MCN) consists of a plant where the communication between sensors, actuators and computational unit is supported by a wireless multi-hop communication network, and data flow is performed using scheduling and routing of sensing and actuation data. We characterize the problem of detecting the failure of links of the radio connectivity graph and provide necessary and sufficient conditions on the plant dynamics and on the communication protocol. We also provide a methodology to \emph{explicitly} design the network topology, scheduling and routing of a communication protocol in order to satisfy the above conditions.