Scheduling of intelligent sensor and actuator network in flexible structures

We consider the problem of monitoring and scheduling a network of intelligent sensors and actuators in large flexible structures. A hybrid controller that activates a subset of the devices in the sensor and actuator network is proposed and whose objective is to effectively address the effects of spatiotemporally varying disturbances. It is assumed that the flexible structure is subjected to disturbances and the intelligent control policy attempts to activate the actuators that, over the duration of a time interval, have spatial authority against the spatiotemporally varying disturbances. The hybrid controller switches the relevant actuators on and deactivates the ones that are not used over a given time interval. The basic idea behind the proposed supervisory scheme is to show that using a switched controller, it is possible to simultaneously improve controller performance and reduce the power consumption in the actuator/sensor network. Both analytical and experimental results on a flexible aluminum plate with eight pairs of collocated actuator/sensor PZT pairs are presented.