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Control Engineering:
Wireless Automation

The limited resources of wireless devices, in terms of bandwidth, energy and computation capabilities, imposes strict restrictions on the design of wireless applications, such as wireless automation and wireless sensor networks. Due to the unreliability of wireless communication, where packets can be dropped or randomly delayed, the application running over the wireless network must take these problems into account. Primarily wireless control systems are studied, but many other real-time wireless applications are also considered. For example the varying delay causes stability problem for wireless closed-loop control, where e.g. the measurements are sent to the controller over a wireless network. The control problem and coordination of several control loops are also studied.

The applications in this area researched here ranges from wireless automation to wireless sensor network applications, such as structural health monitoring. The research area covers also sensor and actuator networks that are investigated from the system level point-of-view. Research problems arise from the data management issues, but also coordination of actuators and networked control are considered.

In the Control Engineering Research Group, we research on several aspects of different wireless applications. We focus on, for example,

  • tuning of PID controller for wireless control
  • adapting the control parameters to the network operation, e.g. congestion
  • simulation of wireless control systems
  • wireless maintenance-man concept
  • network protocols and applications for real-time wireless applications with strict deadlines
  • real-time monitoring systems

Many of the research areas are in the field of wireless sensor networks

  • indoor situation awareness
  • real-time monitoring applications
  • wireless structural health monitoring

The Wireless Sensor Systems research group has been founded for the research on real-time wireless networked applications. It is a joint research group between the Department of Communications and Networking and the Department of Automation and Systems Technology. For more information on the activity of the group see the web-page http://wsn.tkk.fi/en/.

For simulation of wireless control systems, the PiccSIM simulator has been developed. PiccSIM consists of a combination of a network simulator (ns-2) and Simulink, where the process and control algorithms are simulated. With it both the network and control are simulated at the same time, allowing one to study e.g. how specific network protocols affect the control system performance. With this simulation tool new algorithms for wireless control can be developed and tested. PiccSIM is available as open-source.

Our international research partners include UCLA, UC Berkeley and Yale University in the USA as well as Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden): Radio Communication Systems and Automatic Control.

In Finland we cooperate with Aalto University, Department of Communications and Networking (Comnet), and University of Vaasa.

Our industrial partners include Konecranes, Honeywell, Metso Automation, Finnet, Nokia, and Sonera. The research is funded by Academy of Finland and Tekes.

Active projects

  • GENSEN — Generic Sensor Network Architecture for Wireless Automation
  • ISMO — Intelligent Structural Health Monitoring System
  • RELA — Reliable and Real-Time Wireless Automation
  • RIWA — Reliable and Real-Time Wireless Automation
  • WiSA — Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks for Measurement and Control
  • WISM — Wireless Sensor Systems in Indoor Situation Modeling

Past projects

  • ERHE — Very Distributed Sensor and Actuator Networks
  • FUCSY — Future Intelligent Wireless Communication Systems
  • ICT-E — ICT of Electric distribution network
  • RARE — Power Control and Radio Resource Management in Wireless Multimedia Personal Communication Systems
  • SYTE — System technology for future wireless communication

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