Towards precision control in constrained wireless cyber-physical systems

Abstract

This paper introduces the problem of high precision control in constrained wireless cyber-physical systems. We argue that balancing conflicting performance objectives, namely energy efficiency, high reliability and low latency, whilst concurrently enabling data collection and targeted message dissemination, are critical to the success of future applications of constrained wireless cyber-physical systems. We describe the contemporary art in practical collection and dissemination techniques, and select the most appropriate for evaluation. A comprehensive simulation study is presented and experimentally validated, the results of which show that the current art falls significantly short of desirable performance when inter-packet intervals decrease to those required for precision control. It follows that there is a significant need for further study and new solutions to solve this emerging problem.