On the effect of communication constraints on robust performance for a practical 802.15.4 wireless sensor network benchmark problem

This work considers the effect of communication constraints on the dynamic performance of wireless sensor networks that operate in a power aware mode. In particular, the hardware output power limit and quantization constraints that arise practically when only a limited number of power levels are available to the designer are considered in this regard. A novel approach is presented that uses an intuitively appealing graphical means of representing an output power constraint, whereby the saturation block that naturally occurs in a practical setting is mapped from the output of the plant and is compensated through the use of a robust Anti-Windup scheme. System performance and stability is verified using quantitative feedback theory in the linear part of the design. The hybrid controller that ensues is extensively tested experimentally, on a fully compliant 802.15.4 testbed, where mobility is considered in the problem formulation using a team of fully autonomous robots. A benchmark comparison is made between this approach and a number of existing strategies suggesting that an antiwindup approach is an entirely appropriate methodology for the problem at hand.