Event-driven intermittent control

An intermittent controller with fixed sampling interval is recast as an event-driven controller. The key aspect of intermittent control that makes this possible is the use of basis functions, or, equivalently, a generalised hold, to generate the intersample open-loop control signal. The controller incorporates both feedforward events in response to known signals and feedback events in response to detected disturbances. The latter feature makes use of an extended basis-function generator to generate open-loop predictions of states to be compared with measured or observed states. Intermittent control is based on an underlying continuous-time controller; it is emphasised that the design of this continuous-time controller is important, particularly in the presence of input disturbances. Illustrative simulation examples are given.