FeedNetBack · Feedback design for wireless networked systems

Revolutionary developments in microelectronics over the past decades have led to the production of cheap yet powerful devices that communicate with one another, sense and act on their environment and are deployed in large numbers to deliver an abundance of data. Such devices and the networks they form (wireless sensor networks) bring together communication, computation, sensing and control and have enabled monitoring and automation at an unprecedented scale. Specially challenging in this context are networked control systems, where feedback control loops are closed over networked. To take full advantage of this technology novel design methods are necessary to transcend the traditional borders between disciplines, to apply the principles of feedback to complex, interconnected systems. The objective of the FEEDNETBACK project is to generate precisely such a co-design framework, to integrate architectural constraints and performance trade-offs from control, communication, computation, complexity and energy management. This will allow the development of more efficient, robust and affordable networked control technologies that scale and adapt with changing application demands. By focusing on wirelessly connected networks, we will study networked control from a fundamental point of view. We will extend the current scientific state-of-the-art in networked control and will develop a software tool set to support our co-design framework. To demonstrate and evaluate this framework, we will apply it to two industrial case studies: a smart camera network for surveillance and motion capture, and an underwater inspection system that comprises autonomous surface and underwater vehicles In addition to the impact in these two application areas, the new technologies in FEEDNETBACK will be disseminated through an ambitious program led by an innovation accelerator company, with the objective of linking the project's research advances to market opportunities.