TU Graz

Modeling and System Simulation for Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks with Home Automation, Automotive, and Industrial Applications

Thesis advisor: Gernot Kubin

Within the TU Graz Lead Project “Dependable Internet of Things in Adverse Environments”, 10 key researchers work with their PhD students on a broad range of fundamental scientific problems in making the Internet of Things as dependable as today’s electric power networks. One of its subprojects focusses on dependable networked control, with contributions from control, communications, information theory, and signal processing. This excellence program is complemented by recent research initiatives on “electronics-based systems”, including systems-level modeling and simulation methods for a variety of application fields. The present dissertation topic addresses the intersection of both research agendas, i.e., modeling and system simulation for wireless sensor and actuator networks, where the classical representation of mixed-signal electronic systems for signal processing and communications has to be extended by the closed-loop simulation of continuous-time physical plants, time- or event-triggered sensors/controllers/actuators, and synchronous or asynchronous real-time packet communication networks. A key question is how to exploit the packetized communication structure for signal processing and control purposes where the drawbacks of packet losses and delays need to be compensated by the relative abundance of payload data in a single packet as showcased by “sequence-based control” methods and by the redundancies offered with “flooding” type network protocols.