A novel open-source cloud control platform with application to tracking control under disturbance

This paper presents a novel rapid control prototyping (RCP) framework for cloud control systems (CCSs). This new architecture consists of human-computer interaction (HCI) client, a cloud server, and an edge controller. It is designed based on open-source hardware and software, with the advantages of low cost, high flexibility, and easy replication. It can offer a reference design for better and further research of CCSs. Then, a cloud-based maglev control system (CMCS) is developed, and a case study on tracking control with disturbance is performed. Furthermore, a dual-structural controller based on equivalent-input-disturbance (EID) and networked predictive control (NPC) approach is devised to enhance the disturbance rejection performance for CCSs with communication constraints. The system is divided into two subsystems, and the separation theorem is applied to simplify the design. A discrete-time EID (DEID) estimator is introduced for one subsystem to compensate for the time delay and the exogenous disturbance. For another subsystem, a time-event-driven strategy-based NPC method is devised to increase the dynamical performance of handling packet loss. Finally, experimental results verified the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed framework and the DEID-based dual-structural control algorithm.