Design and Stability Analysis of Uncertain Networked Predictive Control Systems with Multiple Forward Channels

This paper is concerned with the design and stability of networked predictive control for uncertain systems with multiple forward channels. The delays and packet dropouts are distributed such that the classic networked predictive control (NPC) needs modifications to be implemented. An improved control signal selection scheme with distributed prediction length is proposed to increase the prediction accuracy and hence achieve better control performance. Moreover, stability analysis results are obtained for both constant and random cases. Interestingly, it is shown that the stability of the closed-loop NPC system is not related to the distributed delays when they are constant and the system model is accurate. Finally, a two-axis milling machine example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method