Networked Monitoring and Control

Networked Monitoring and Control
(previously Networked Embedded and Control Systems)

Today, electronics and software are embedded in billions of devices and objects. Pervasive data will change how these intelligent objects dynamically pool information, cooperate under severe constraints and reliably interact and control the physical world. The increasing complexity of modern electronic systems can be seen across many industrial sectors from manufacturing to large scale infrastructures e.g. energy production, electricity distribution and airports. This places strong demands on the needs of advanced new technologies for monitoring and control as well as the underpinning methodologies and theories.

Advances in micro and nano-systems technologies have led to the emergence of new sensors and sensor networks. The utilisation of such sensors in closed loop control systems is increasing and leading to improvements in performance and efficiency. The networked control system is a distributed hierarchical system of co-operating controllers and computing elements which are connected together. These systems often have complex and dynamic goals with a great deal of autonomy. They have to cope with failures and uncertainties with recovery through reconfiguration or self-restructuring. There have been a number of recent international collaborations on the topic of dependable infrastructures based on embedded technologies, notably between the EU and US.

Wireless Sensor Networks and Cooperating Objects have become a hot issue in research, and a lot of progress has been made in the past few years. Recently, the technology has become more attractive for industry by paving the way for new applications which go well beyond traditional sensor applications. Emerging applications include environmental monitoring, health, transport, risk management, early warning systems, manufacturing plants and ambient assisted living.

Cooperating Objects are defined as a collection of entities consisting of:

• sensors
• controllers (information processors)
• actuators
• some (wireless) network to talk to other cooperating objects

Cooperating objects communicate with each other and are able to achieve a common goal autonomously. Although visions have been laid out and significant progress has been made, there are still many open questions and challenges in the research domain: theory, algorithms, protocols, implementations, trials etc. Surveys indicate that a significant number of breakthroughs are expected in the area between over the next 5 and 10 years.

Middleware technologies are becoming increasingly important in distributed computing systems. Middleware is needed to provide seamless connectivity between distributed applications or different networked applications. Middleware is defined as the software layer that lies between the operating system and the applications on each site of the system. In the embedded systems context, middleware research focuses on ubiquitous connectivity and dynamic reconfiguration of distributed objects and components.

Background Information

Portfolio of projects in Control Systems and in Wireless Sensor Networks and Cooperating Objects and Middleware within the Information Society Technologies Programme (Framework Programme 6).

Embedded WiSeNTs research roadmap on Cooperating Objects ( 1.925KB)

Joint US-EU workshop, Long Term Challenges in High Confidence Composable Embedded Systems, June 2006