Extension and experimental evaluation of an event-based state-feedback approach

Event-based control aims at reducing the traffic load of the communication network used to implement feedback control. The communication is invoked only if an event indicates that the control error exceeds a certain threshold. This paper extends a state-feedback approach to event-based control published recently and proves that the extended control loop asymptotically reaches the set-point for arbitrary constant disturbances. This control method is applied to a thermofluid process to illustrate the main characteristics of event-based control and to evaluate the closed-loop performance. Experiments with a pilot plant show that the event-based control scheme is robust against severe model uncertainties.

Research highlights
► The proposed event-based control scheme has the set-point tracking property.
► The scheme reduces the communication exchange in the control loop considerably.
► The approach used is robust against severe model uncertainties.