Control of Distributed Systems: Tutorial and Overview

Distributed systems consist of an interconnection of two or more subsystems. Control of such systems is structured by two or more controllers, each receiving an observation stream from a local subsystem and providing an input to the local subsystem. Coordinated distributed systems are defined for linear systems, for Gaussian systems, and for discrete-eventsystemsandanalgebraic-geometriccharacterization is provided. Coordination control of distributed systems requires a specific control synthesis procedure which is presented. Distributed control with communication between controllers is formulated and discussed.