Int. j. eng. sci., Vol(4), No (3), March, 2015. pp.

19-27

TI Journals

International Journal of Engineering Sciences

www.tijournals.com

ISSN:
2306-6474
Copyright 2015. All rights reserved for TI Journals.

Limitation on Stability and Performance of Control System over a

Communication Channel
Feng Yi-wei *
College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Lanzhou Univ. of Tech., Lanzhou, 730050, China.
*Corresponding author: ywfeng@yeah.net

Keywords

Abstract

Stability
Constraints
SNR
ACGN

This paper investigates the constraints, imposed by an additive colored Gaussian noise (ACGN) channel and
quantizer, on stability and performance that arise in a linear time invariant (LTI) control feedback loop. The
infimal signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the coarsest quantization bound that can be interpreted as an H2
norm limitations for stability of a LTI unstable, non minimum phase (NMP) plant are obtained. In particular,
an exact expression of the optimal LTI controller that achieves the minimum tracking performance is
presented here.

1.

Introduction

The study of limitation in control design is the core of traditional control system or networked control systems (NCSs) and is of tremendous
importance. Constraints are ubiquitous in many engineering fields. As is well known, early researches in traditional control theory come from
Bodes sensitivity integral bounds achievable control performance [1] and in information theory Shannon showed that the channel capacity gives
an upper bound on the communication rate [2]. In 1983, Bosch GmbH began a feasibility study of using networked devices to control different
functions in passenger cars. This appears to be one of the earliest efforts along the lines of modern networked control [3]. Technology from all of
these branches of engineering is used in parallel in NCSs. Up to now, research effort has been spent on merging limitation from control and
information theory. In more recent years, the study of fundamental constraints has been extended to problems of control over a multipurpose
shared network and has attracted growing interest [4-5].
As an active research fields, the NCSs increasingly arouses the attention of researchers. Key questions within this framework are related to the
problem of affecting the stability and performance of closed loop over a communication channel. Most results aimed at data-rate limit, delays
and data-dropout. For example, data-rate constraints have been studied in [5-7], the issue of time delays have been studied in [8-10] and data
dropouts have been considered in [11-13]. Aside from these limitations, there is another constraint that is worthy of intensive investigation and
has not been fully addressed. The fundamental limitations of information transmission by electrical means bandwidth and noise. When a signal
changes rapidly with time, its frequency content, or spectrum, extends over a wide range and we say that the signal has a large bandwidth.
Similarly, the ability of a system to follow signal variations is reflected in its usable frequency response or transmission bandwidth. Now all
electrical systems contain energy-storage elements, and stored energy cannot be changed instantaneously. Consequently, every communication
system has a finite bandwidth B that limits the rate of signal variations. If we denote the available transmission power by P, noise power by N.
Then a complementary result, known as the Shannon-Hartley theorem [2, 14-17], gives the channel capacity as C B log 2 (1 P N ) bits/s.
There exists a coding technique such that the information can be transmitted over the channel at any rate R less than the channel capacity C and
with arbitrarily small frequency of errors despite the presence of noise. Conversely, if R C , then the reliable communication is impossible.
Motivated by this, for linear system, it has been shown in [18] if the unstable plant is to be stabilized, then the capacity of a noiseless channel in
the control loop has to satisfy a lower bound that depends on the unstable eigenvalues of the plant. In this spirit, many researchers began to study
the control problem over a communication channel with a constraint on its signal-to ratio (SNR) [19]. Indeed, the results in [19] extended the
results in [18] to a nonminimum-phase (NMP), time-delay, and unstable plant over an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) communication
channel. Then the author of [4] extends the continuous-time results by [19] to systems with time-delay and feedback over bandwidth-limited
additive colored Gaussian noise(ACGN) channels. In that paper, the authors obtain a necessary and sufficient condition on the channel SNR for
closed-loop stabilizability using LTI feedback. It is also shown in [20] that the SNR approach is used to study the novel fundamental limitations
imposed by the presence of a channel model on the stability of a feedback control loop.
Since the channel is digital, it is important that quantization is another topic to be studied. The idea of modeling the quantization error as an
additive white Gaussian noise began to be challenged in NCSs where only very coarse information is allowed to propagate through the network
owing to bandwidth-limited channel. Since the author of [21] treated quantization as partial information of the quantized entity rather than its
approximation, various methods for studying quantization effects on control have been developed. One of most interesting quantizer is called
logarithmic quantizer given by [5, 22-23]. In [5], the author considered the stabilization problem via quantized input signals, the coarsest
memoryless quantizer for stabilization of single-input discrete-time linear time-invariant systems is derived. A notable point is that the upper
bound of the coarseness is given only by the unstable poles of the plants. This result is also extended to LQR type problems in [22] and a fixedrate finite-level logarithmic quantizer with a dynamic scaling in [23]. Indeed, it is uncertain whether the logarithmic quantizer can approach the
minimum average data rate required for stability or performance. Though the logarithmic quantizer has better efficiency in term of data rate for
performance control than a uniform quantizer, but an interesting phenomenon is when focus on the coarsest quantization bound for stability and
performance control, we obtained the same maximum upper bound for both logarithmic quantizer and uniform quantizer.
In spite of the above results showing the relationships between the NMP zeros, unstable poles of the plant and the coarseness of quantization
[5], in practical NCSs, it is more realistic to assume that the network contains both quantization and channels. A nature extension of our interests
is on the relationships between the two properties above for NCSs. This is our motivation of research. Figure 1 describes a feedback control
system over a communication channel. The bandwidth-limited ACGN channel is characterized by two stable transfer functions, H(z) and F(z),
and two parameters: the admissible input power level , and the noise spectral density n2 . Q(z) is the quantizer, C(z) is controller and G(z) is
plant to be controlled.

Feng Yi-wei *

20

International Journal of Engineering Sciences Vol(4), No (3), March, 2015.

Figure 1. Feedback control over a communication channel and quantizer

In this paper, we study the stability and performance of the NCSs in Figure 1 in the presence of quantizer and channel. The controller is assumed
to have already been designed for a given plant so as to achieve desired control objectives when the communication channel is assumed to be
transparent. However, when carrying out this controller in NCSs, the stability and performance of the NCSs need to be rethink. We will show
how stability, as measured by the coarsest quantization bound and the minimum SNR, can be realized. Then, we also show how performance
degradation, as measured by the variance of the tracking error, can be minimized. The coarsest quantization bound and the minimum SNR
required for stability is characterized as an explicit function of the plant unstable poles, NMP zeros and channel transfer function based on the
minimum H 2 norm. We derive explicit characterization of the Youla parameter that defines an optimal controller to obtain the optimal tracking
performance.
Terminology: let C denote the complex plane, D, D C denote respectively unit-disk and unit-disk complements in the complex plane C, with D
the unit-disk itself. A discrete-time signal is denoted by x(k), k=0,1,2, and its Z-transform by X(z), z C . Given P(z), a rational transfer
function of a discrete-time system, we say that P( z ) L2 if P(z) is proper and bounded in C. P( z ) H 2 if P(z) is proper, bounded and stable in
D. P ( z ) H 2 if P(z) is proper, bounded and unstable in D C . The L2 norm of P(z) is given by P

2
2

(1 2 ) P(e j ) d ,where j 1 .

Since H 2 , H 2 are subspaces of L2 , we have that the H 2 norm of P(z) and H 2 norm of P(z) have the same definition as the L2 norm of P(z).

2.

Preliminary

2.1 Communication channel

We consider a NCS with a communication channel modeled by two rational transfer functions, as depicted in Figure 1. To facilitate the
exposition, we focus on the situation where the channel only exists between plant and quantizer. The channel is characterized by two stable
transfer function H(z) and F(z). The channel model chosen for treatment in this special case involve some sacrifice of generality, but the
formulas are easy to interpret and simple and efficient description for the communication channel. We assume a communication channel with
input output relation
y H ( z ) y F ( z )n
(1)
2

j
where y is the channel input, n is a zero-mean white Gaussian noise with power spectral density (PSD) N (e ) and variance

n2

1
2

N ( e j ) 2 d

(2)
2

The power in the channel input, defined by Y (e j ) , is related to its spectral density by

y2

1
2

Y (e j ) d

(3)
2

The channel input is required to satisfy the power constraint y for some predetermined input power level 0 . In fact, such power
constraint may arise either from electronic hardware limitations or regulatory constraints introduced to minimize interference to other
2
j
communication system users[19]. The signal-to-noise ratio constraint implies that y is related to n2 by N (e )

y2
P
2
2
n n

(4)
2

j
where is the channel signal-to-noise ratio and N (e ) can be rewritten as
2

N (e j )

y2
2
N 0 (e j )

(5)

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Limitation on Stability and Performance of Control System over a Communication Channel

International Journal of Engineering Sciences Vol(4), No (3), March, 2015.

where N 0 (e j ) is satisfied 1 2

N 0 (e j ) d 1 .

In this paper, a signal-to-noise constrained communication channel is employed. This type of channel model is commonly utilized in many
communication systems.

3
h
2

3
h
2

Figure 2. Input-output characteristic of a unified quantizer

Output

2 (k )
Input

1 (k )

Figure 3. Input-output characteristic of a Logarithmic quantizer

2.2 Quantization model

There exist several ways of characterizing a quantizer; see [23-27]. We will focus on uniform quantizer and logarithmic quantizer. Described as
follows, respectively.
Uniform quantizer: A quantizer is shown in Figure 2, each horizontal level is called quantization level and the gap between two subsequent
quantization levels is called quantization interval. The quantizer with the same quantization interval is called unified quantizer. For purposes of
analysis, it has been found convenient to define uniform quantizer Qu () as a nonlinear operator having the input-output staircase relation shown
in Figure 2. Then the uniform quantizer is defined as follows:

m(k )
(6)
Qu (m(k )) sat M


where M 0 is the quantizer dynamic range, 2M ( L 1) 1 is the quantization step and L is number of quantization levels. m(k ) denotes
m( k )
the integer part of m(k). If input signals m M , we say the quantizer is overloaded, and sat M (m(k ))
M .The quantization error can
m( k )
be defined as

qe Qu (m(k )) m(k )
where q e is zero mean stationary discrete time random process on the interval (

(7)

, ) . The quantizer Qu (m(k )) can be bounded by

Qu (m(k )) (1 u )m(k )
where u ( 2 , 2 ) .

(8)

Logarithmic quantizer: A quantizer shown in Figure 3 is called logarithmic if the set of quantized levels is characterized by

U u i , u i i u (0), i 1,2, 0 u 0

(9)

Feng Yi-wei *

22

International Journal of Engineering Sciences Vol(4), No (3), March, 2015.

Each quantization level ui corresponds to a segment such that the quantizer maps the whole segment to this quantization level. In addition, these
segments form a partition of R, that is, they are disjoint and their union equals R. For the logarithmic quantizer, the associated quantizer Ql () is
defined as follows[5, 22]:

1
1
i
if
i 0 x
i 0
0
1
1

(10)
Ql ( x ) 0
if x 0
Q ( x) if x 0
l

1
where
, 0 1 , i 0,1, 2, . Note that a smaller corresponds to a coarser quantization density and vice versa. Notice from Figure
1
3, a logarithmic quantizer can be bounded by a sector bound (1 l ) x , where l [ , ] and can be rewritten as
Qu ( x (k )) (1 l ) x(k )
(11)
2.3 Nominal design and problem description
The networked scenario considers here is shown in Figure 1, where the control loop is closed through a communication channel in the presence
of quantizer. The nominal system is fairly standard. The system G(z) is a rational transfer function with relative degree n g 1 , which contain m
distinct unstable poles ( p i D C , i 1 m ) and l distinct NMP zeros ( b j D C , j 1 l ). An LTI SISO discrete time controller C(z) has
already designed for a discrete time SISO LTI plant G(z) without channel and quantizer. In the classical closed-loop system of Figure 1 without
channel and quantizer, the tracking error is given by

e yd y

1
yd
(1 G ( z )C ( z ))

(12)

The loop sensitivity function is S ( z ) (1 G ( z )C ( z )) 1 and complete sensitivity function is T ( z ) 1 S ( z ) . In the presence of channel and
quantizer, as shown in Figure 1, it is not difficult to obtain

C ( z)
C ( z )Q ( z ) F ( z )
yd
n
1 C ( z )Q ( z ) H ( z )G ( z )
1 C ( z )Q ( z ) H ( z )G ( z )
G ( z )C ( z )
G ( z )C ( z )Q ( z ) F ( z )
y
yd
n
1 C ( z )Q ( z ) H ( z )G ( z )
1 C ( z )Q ( z ) H ( z )G ( z )

(13)
(14)

For the configuration in Figure 1, the loop sensitivity function and complementary sensitivity function are S 0 ( z ) (1 C ( z )Q ( z ) H ( z )G ( z )) 1 ,

T0 ( z ) 1 S 0 ( z ) .
From (13) and (14)

u S 0 ( z )C ( z ) y d S0 ( z )C ( z )Q( z ) F ( z )n
y S 0 ( z )G ( z )C ( z ) y d S 0 ( z )G ( z )C ( z )Q( z ) F ( z )n

(15)
(16)

Let K(z) denote the class of all proper controllers C(z) that internally stabilizes the system of Figure 1. Then consider the following design
problem.
Problem 1. Under the aforementioned assumptions, find a proper rational function C ( z ) K ( z ) such that the closed-loop system (17) is
asymptotically stabilization under the constraints imposed by the admissible channel SNR (4) and quantizer.

3.

Main results

In this section, we consider the stabilization of the closed loop system over the ACGN channel with power limitation as shown in Figure 1.
Firstly, considering quantizer in Figure 1 for either uniform quantizer or logarithmic quantizer, we show that the stability analysis problem can
be tackled with the coarsest quantization bound and the infimum SNR. Then, we focus on the optimal tracking problems and the understanding
of the inherent limitation on the best tracking performance achievable via an ACGN channel with power constraint.
A.

The minimum SNR and maximum quantization bound

Consider the transfer function T from y d , n to y is

T Tyy Tyn T0 ( z ) H 1 ( z )(1 F ( z ))

(17)

Notice that the characterization of the quantizer in (8) or (11), a key point is that the PSD of n is related to the PSD of y via (4). From Figure 1,
the power of channel input may be computed as

y2

1
2

S 0 (e j )G (e j )C (e j )Yd (e j ) 2 d
2

Tyy ( z )
2

2
yy d

1
2

S 0 (e j )G (e j )C (e j ) F (e j ) N (e j ) 2 d

(18)

2
n

Tyn ( z ) 2

where Yd (e ) , N (e ) are the PSD of y d and n, is predetermined input power level. The above expression serves to quantify the impact of
the channel and quantizer on the stability and performance of the system (14). It depends on the limited channel (1) and the quantizer (8) or (11).

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Limitation on Stability and Performance of Control System over a Communication Channel

International Journal of Engineering Sciences Vol(4), No (3), March, 2015.

From (18) we observe that a fundamental limitation in the SNR of the channel input will be given by the simultaneous infimum of Tyy (z ) and
d

Tyn (z ) .
2

Before deriving the main result, we need to first introduce the following Blaschke products
m

Bp ( z)

i 1

z pi
, Bz ( z )
1 zpi

(19)

z ,i

i 1

z bi
1
, containing the D C poles of G(z) and the D C zeros of G(z), respectively. The residue of B p ( z ) , Bz1 ( z ) at z pi , z bi is
1 zbi

where B z , i
given by

Re s z p B p1 ( z ) (1 pk p j )
i

i 1
i k

l
1 pk pi
1 bk bi
, Re s z b B p1 ( z ) (1 bk b j )
pk pi
i 1 bk bi

(20)

ik

The following theorem presents the main result of this subsection. The maximum quantization bound and minimum SNR required for stability
can be obtained.
Theorem 1. Consider the feedback system of Figure 1 with transfer function T defined as in (17). Assume that there are no unstable pole-zero
cancellations between G(z) and Q(z), H(z). If the closed-loop system is stabilizable, there exists a Youlas free parameter W ( z ) RH such that
an upper bound sup of the uniform quantizer Q(z), which provides the coarsest quantization bound and the channel SNR are respectively given
by

sup MaxBz1 ( z ) H 1 ( z ) N 01 ( z )W ( z ) 1

(21)

z bi

inf W ( z )RH T

k 1 i 1

r1,i r1,k r2 ,i r2 ,k
pi pk 1

n2

(22)

where

r1,i Re s z p B p1 ( z ) Bz1 ( pi ) H 1 ( pi ), r2,i Re s z p B p1 ( z ) Bz1 ( pi ) H 1 ( pi ) F ( pi )

i

(23)

Proof. Consider a coprime factorization for G(z)Q(z)H(z) as

G ( z ) H ( z )Q ( z )

N (z)
M ( z)

(24)

where N ( z ), M ( z ) RH . Further, without loss of generality, Let us take

N ( z ) B z ( z ) N 0 ( z )Q( z ) H ( z ), M ( z ) B p ( z ) M 0 ( z )

(25)

where N 0 ( z ), M 0 ( z ) RH , are stable, proper, real-rational functions, B z ( z ), B p ( z ) are defined in (19). N 0 ( z ) with the same relative degree

n g as G(z). M 0 ( z ) with relative degree zero. There exist X ( z ), Y ( z ) RH satisfy the Bezout identity

N ( z ) X ( z ) M ( z )Y ( z ) 1

(26)

All stabilizing controller C(z) is parameterized by a Youlas free parameter W ( z ) RH as

C ( z)

X ( z ) M ( z )W ( z )
Y ( z ) N ( z )W ( z )

(27)

By (16), (17)

Tyy Bz ( z ) N 0 ( z )Q ( z ) X ( z ) Bz ( z ) BP ( z ) N 0 ( z )M 0 ( z )Q ( z )W ( z )
d

Tny ( Bz ( z ) N 0 ( z )Q( z ) F ( z ) X ( z ) Bz ( z ) BP ( z ) N 0 ( z ) M 0 ( z )Q ( z ) F ( z )W ( z ))

(28)

Since Bz ( z ), BP ( z ) are all pass they have norm one, then

infW ( z )RH Tyy

2
d

infW ( z )RH Tyn

2
2
2

B p1 ( z ) N 0 ( z )Q ( z ) X ( z ) N 0 ( z ) M 0 ( z )Q( z )W ( z )

B p1 ( z ) N 0 ( z )Q ( z ) F ( z ) X ( z ) N 0 ( z )M 0 ( z )Q ( z ) F ( z )W ( z ))

(29)

The first term inside the norm expression in the right side of (29) is a mixed term with stable and unstable poles. Notice that both terms are also
square integrable since N 0 ( z ) has relative degree n g 1 and M 0 ( z ), F ( z ) have relative degree zero. Youlas free parameter W(z) and Quantizer
Q(z) are proper and belong to RH . Then, the first term inside the both norm expression in the right side of (29) can be decomposed as

B p1 ( z ) N 0 ( z )Q( z ) X ( z ) 1 ( z ) 1 ( z )

(30)

B p1 ( z ) N 0 ( z )Q ( z ) F ( z ) X ( z ) 2 ( z ) 2 ( z )

where 2 ( z ), 1 ( z ) H 2 , 1 ( z ), 2 ( z ) H 2 . By the lemma 3 of section 10.4 in [28]

infW ( z )RH Tyy

2
d

infW ( z )RH Tyn

2
2
2

1 ( z ) 1 ( z ) N 0 ( z )M 0 ( z )Q( z )W ( z )

2 ( z ) 2 ( z ) N 0 ( z ) M 0 ( z )Q( z ) F ( z )W ( z ))
2

2
2

By means of the squared H 2 norm of a partial fraction expansion and the Bezout identity (26),

(31)

Feng Yi-wei *

24

International Journal of Engineering Sciences Vol(4), No (3), March, 2015.

r2 ,i
z pi
where r1,i and r2 ,i are defined as in (23). The second part 1 ( z ), 2 ( z ) of (31) can also be obtained by

1 ( z )

i 1

r1,i

2 ( z )
z pi

i 1

1 B z1 ( z ) H 1 ( z ) M 0 ( z ), 2 B z1 ( z ) H 1 ( z ) M 0 ( z ) F ( z )

(32)

(33)

Then the closed form expression for the squared H 2 norm is

1 ( z )
2

1
2

1
2j

r1,i

e j pi
r1,i
m

i 1
1 zpi

i 1

r1,i

i 1
e j pi

i 1

r1,i
i 1
z pi

i 1

r1,i
d
e j pi

r1,i
d
e j pi
r1,i
m
dz
i1
z pi

i 1

r1,i

zpi 1

i 1

(34)

r1,i
dz
z pi

where r1i , r2 i are defined as in (23). The last line of the equation (34) can be expanded

1
2j

1 ( z )
2

r1,1
r1,1
1
dz
zp1 1 z p1
2j

r1,m
r1,m
dz
zpm 1 z p m

(35)

by use of the residue theorem [29] on each contour integral, (35) can be expressed as

1 ( z )
2

r1,1r1,1
r r
1,m 1,m
p1 p1 1
pm pm 1

r2 ,1 r2 ,1
r r
2 ,m 2 ,m
p1 p1 1
pm pm 1

k 1

i 1

r1,k r1,i
pi pk 1

(36)

r2 ,k r2 ,i
pi pk 1

(37)

Similarly, we obtained

2 ( z )
2

k 1

i 1

By select an appropriate Youlas free parameter W(z) such that the expression 1 ( z ) N 0 ( z ) M 0 ( z )Q( z )W ( z ) and

2 ( z ) N 0 ( z ) M 0 ( z )Q ( z ) F ( z )W ( z )) arbitrary small in H 2 . that is

W ( z ) inf 1 ( z )( N 0 ( z ) M 0 ( z )Q( z )) 1 ,2 ( z )( N 0 ( z ) M 0 ( z )Q( z ) F ( z )) 1

(38)

As such W(z) is selected, notice that the uniform quantizer Q(z) in (8), it is not difficulty to obtained the coarsest quantization step
sup Max B z1 ( z ) H 1 ( z ) N 01 ( z )W ( z ) 1
(39)
z bi

and the infimal norm can be obtained by

infW ( z )RH T

2
2

infW ( z )RH Tyy

2
d

infW ( z )RH Tyn

2
2

k 1 i 1

Therefore, from (18) we have obtained (22) which completes the proof.

r1,i r1,k r2 ,i r2 ,k
pi pk 1

(40)

Remark 1. Theory 1 prevents a new stability criterion for system defined in Figure 1 with uniform quantizer and a limited communication
channel. This criterion is derived by utilizing a parameterization of all internally stabilizing controllers in (27), which makes full use of the
information about the plant unstable poles, NMP zeros, quantizer and channel. From the formulation (27), it is not difficulty to find the NMP
zeros, quantizer and channel worsen the constraints imposed by unstable poles to system. It is also worth mentioning that some techniques have
been exploited in the calculation of the squared H 2 norm of a partial fraction expansion expression.
Remark 2. It is important to note that the Theorem 1 consider a uniform quantizer in (8). Indeed, for a logarithmic quantizer in (11), similar
result can also be obtained, the supremum sup of the sector bound for stability of the closed loop system in Figure 1, which provides the
coarsest quantization density inf , is given by

sup MaxBz1 ( z ) H 1 ( z ) N 01 ( z )W ( z ) 1
z bi

(41)

If we remove the quantizer in Figure 1, the condition in Theorem 1 reduces to the result in[4]. The optimal H 2 norm also similar to that in (22)
has been reported in [4, 19, 30-31], however, these results only for a plant without quantizer. A proper rational controller is given by (27) such
that the closed-loop system in Figure 1is stable over the ACGN channel with power limitation.
B.

Optimal tracking performance

Our tracking problem is schematically represented by the closed loop system depicted in Figure 1. In this setup, the output signal y is to track a
reference signal yd via a noise channel. For a given input reference signal, the tracking error of the system is

e S 0 ( z ) yd S 0 ( z )Q( z ) F ( z )n

(42)

where S0 ( z ) is the system sensitivity function, n is a zero-mean Gaussian noise. The quantizer given by (8) or (12) with the coarsest quantization
bound sup in (23) or in (43). Then, follows from the well-known Parseval identity, the tracking error is measured by its energy

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Limitation on Stability and Performance of Control System over a Communication Channel

International Journal of Engineering Sciences Vol(4), No (3), March, 2015.

J e2

1
2

S 0 (e j )Yd (e j ) S 0 (e j )Q(e j ) F (e j ) N (e j ) 2 d

S 0 ( z )(Yd ( z ) Q ( z ) F ( z ) N ( z ))

(43)

2
2

We use J as a measure of systems tracking ability and we are interested in the best possible tracking error achievable by a Youla
parameterization of all controllers that stabilizes the plant. This infimal problem has a well-known solution, with well-known numerical methods
to design the controller so that J is small. Nevertheless, it is desirable to have a deeper understanding of the smallest tracking error J opt inf J
C(z)

obtainable when the controller C(z) is chosen among all possible stabilizing controllers. In this subsection , we achieve this understanding in the
form of an explicit, simple, and informative relationship between this infimal constraints and the plant characteristics.
We now cast the optimal tracking problem as optimal H 2 norm. Consider the system in Figure 1, we have the following result:
Theorem 2. Consider the closed-loop system depicted in Figure 1, let G(z) have nonminimum phase zeros b1 , b2 , bl with corresponding
Blaschke products given by (19) and N ( z ), M ( z ) be factorized as (25). y d is reference signal and n is zero-mean white Gaussian noise. Then

J J opt , where
l

J opt k 1 i 1

si sk
Yd ( z ) Q ( z ) F ( z ) N ( z )
bi bk 1

(44)

and si Res(1 bi bi ) .This performance bound is tight and can be achieved by controller
z bi

C ( z)

B p ( z)M 0 ( z)

(45)

(1 sup ) N 0 ( z ) H ( z )(1 B z ( z ))

Proof. According (24), (25) and (27), we can first write J in (43) as

J M ( z )(Y ( z ) N ( z )W ( z ))(Yd ( z ) Q ( z ) F ( z ) N ( z ))
Using

the

Benout

1
z

identity

(26),

(46)

then M ( z )Y ( z ) M ( z ) N ( z )W ( z ) 1 N ( z ) X ( z ) M ( z ) N ( z )W ( z ) .

We

claim

that

1
z

B ( z ) M ( z )Y ( z ) B ( z ) ( z ) , where ( z ) N 0 ( z )Q( z ) H ( z )( M ( z )W ( z ) X ( z )) . Notice Bz (z ) is all pass, then (43) can simplified

to

J ( Bz1 ( z ) ( z ))(Yd ( z ) Q ( z ) F ( z ) N ( z ))

(47)

Note that Bz,1i (1) 1 , which implies that ( Bz,1i ( z ) 1) H 2 , by a partial fraction expansion, it then follows that
l

J ( Bz,1i ( z ) 1)(Yd ( z ) Q( z ) F ( z ) N ( z )) 2 inf

X ( z )RH

i 1

(1 ( z ))(Yd ( z ) Q( z ) F ( z ) N ( z ))

2
2

(48)

Select X ( z ) (1 N 0 ( z )Q ( z ) H ( z ) M ( z )W ( z ))( N 0 ( z )Q ( z ) H ( z )) 1 , we obtained

l

J opt

(B

1
z ,i

( z ) 1)(Yd ( z ) Q ( z ) F ( z ) N ( z ))

2
2

i 1

i 1

( Bz,1i ( z ) 1) Yd ( z ) Q ( z ) F ( z ) N ( z )
2

k 1

i1

si sk
Yd ( z ) Q( z ) F ( z ) N ( z )
bi bk 1

2
2

(49)

2
2

Since Youla parameter W(z) can be obtained in (38), using the Bezout identity (26), we have

Y ( z ) (1 N ( x) X ( z ))M 1 (1 B z ( z )) M 1 N ( z )W ( z )

(50)

Then we obtain the following controller that can be achieved the infimal of tracking error (42).

C ( z)

M ( z)
N 0 ( z )Q ( z ) H ( z )(1 Bz ( z ))

(51)

Consider the maximum quantization bound, which completes the proof.

Remark 3. It can be find that by using the quantizer with the coarsest quantization bound and a fixed signal-to-noise ratio channel, the optimal
tracking performance do not have an infinite bound over all frequencies. Indeed, besides the plant nonminimum phase zeros and unstable poles,
the input signal yd and noise n are one of the important factors that affect the tracking performance J as shown in (43).
Remark 4. The controller we obtained in (45), including not only NMP zeros and unstable poles, but also channel and quantizer. Once the
quantization bound of the uniform quantizer or logarithmic quantizer achieve the coarsest quantization bound (21) or (41), then we call such
quantizer is optimal and the corresponding controller in (45) is also called optimal quantizer. It is an interesting phenomenon, though the
logarithmic quantizer has the better performance than uniform quantizer [23-24], but they both have the same maximum bound for stability of
LTI SISO unstable, NMP plant.

Feng Yi-wei *

26

International Journal of Engineering Sciences Vol(4), No (3), March, 2015.

4.

An example

To show how stability and performance can be guaranteed by the coarsest quantization bound and the infimum SNR, we provide a simple
illustrative example. Assume the plant has a transfer function G ( z ) ( z z1 ) ( z p1 )( z p 2 ) , where z1 is NMP zero, p1 is unstable pole

p2 is stable pole, the channel bandwidth and channel coloring models are given by H ( z ) 1.4( z p 2 ) ( z p 3 ) and
F ( z ) 1.3( z p 4 ) ( z p 5 ) . Selected the unstable poles at p1 1.5 , NMP zero z 1 2 and let p 2 , p 3 , p 4 , p 5 D . Figure 4 shows the

and

effect of channel bandwidth constraint on one axis and colored noise on the other axis. The vertical scale is the SNR values in decibels required
to guaranteed stability. From Figure 4 we can find that reduce both the bandwidth of communication channel and noise channel will force an
increase in the value of SNR required for stability.

40

SNR [db]

30
20
10
0
40
20

30

20

H Bandwidth [db]

Figure 4. SNR bound required for stability at poles

40

10
F Bandwidth [db]

p1 1.5 , NMP z 1 2 and bandwidth-limited channel H, F .

The reference signal is chosen to be a step signal, the system is perturbed by a coloring noise and using the logarithmic quantizer (11), from (21)
we obtained the coarsest quantization bound sup 0.7645 , with the help of Theorem 2, let z 1 2 , p1 1.5 and p 2 0.4 , Figure 5 shows
the actual system output and the reference trajectory. It is clear that over time the system asymptotically tracking the reference signal. Similarly,
from (45), an optimal controller can be obtained by C ( z ) ( 2 z 3 2.8 z 2 0.9 z 9) ( 4.5 z 4 1.5 z 3 1.72 z 2 0.24 z 0.16) , which yield
stable asymptotic step signal tracking in the presence of an unknown channel noise and achieve the infimum tracking error.

1.4
1.2

Magnitude

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
-0.2
0

10

15

20

Time
Figure 5. Tracking a step signal using an optimal controller in (45)

25

27

Limitation on Stability and Performance of Control System over a Communication Channel

International Journal of Engineering Sciences Vol(4), No (3), March, 2015.

5.

Conclusions

The stability of an NMP, unstable plant with uniform quantizer and logarithmic quantizer over an ACGN channel is addressed in this paper. For
both quantizer, uniform and logarithmic quantizer, we obtained the coarsest quantization bound for guaranteed stability. The lower bound on the
channel SNR for stability is characterized by the optimal transfer function H 2 -norm between the channel signal input and noise input.
Specifically, it was shown that tracking performance depends on the location of NMP zeros. Then an optimal controller is given to obtain the
optimal tracking performance. These results shed new light on stability and tracking performance issues, and more generally, lend new insight
into the study of fundamental limitation of quantizer and communication channel.

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[22]
[23]
[24]
[25]
[26]
[27]
[28]
[29]
[30]
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