Control with a random access protocol and packet dropouts

This paper investigates networked control systems whose actuators communicate with the controller via a limited number of unreliable channels. The access to the channels is decided by a so-called group random access protocol, which is modelled as a binary Markov sequence. Data packet dropouts in the channels are modelled as independent Bernoulli processes. For such systems, a systematic characterisation for controller synthesis is established and stated in terms of the transition probabilities of the Markov protocol and the packet dropout probabilities. The results are illustrated via a numerical example.