Annual Reviews in Control 32 (2008) 8798

www.elsevier.com/locate/arcontrol

Decentralized control: An overview

Lubomr Bakule
Institute of Information Theory and Automation, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 182 08 Prague 8, Czech Republic
Received 8 October 2007; accepted 4 March 2008
Available online 2 May 2008

Abstract
The paper reviews the past and present results in the area of decentralized control of large-scale complex systems. An emphasis is laid on
decentralization, decomposition, and robustness. These methodologies serve as effective tools to overcome specific difficulties arising in largescale complex systems such as high dimensionality, information structure constraints, uncertainty, and delays. Several prospective topics for future
research are introduced in this contents. The overview is focused on recent decomposition approaches in interconnected dynamic systems due to
their potential in providing the extension of decentralized control into networked control systems.
# 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Decentralized control; Large-scale systems; Decomposition; Delay; Uncertainty; Robustness

1. Introduction
The notion of large-scale systems has been introduced when it
became clear that there are real world control problems that
cannot be solved by using one-shot approaches. Such typical
motivating problems arise in the control of interconnected power
systems with strong interactions, water systems which are widely
distributed in space, traffic systems with many external signal, or
large-space flexible structures. The reason is that the systems to
be controlled are too large and the problems to be solved are too
complex. That is, these tasks cannot be solved simply by using
faster computers with larger memory. They necessitate new ideas
for dividing the analysis and synthesis of the overall system into
independent or almost independent subproblems, for dealing
with the incomplete information about the system, for treating
with the uncertainties, and for dealing with delays. The
complexity is an essential and dominating problem in systems
theory and practise. It leads to severe difficulties that are
encountered in the tasks of analyzing, designing, and implementing appropriate control strategies and algorithms. These
difficulties arise mainly from the following well-known reasons:
 Dimensionality;
 Information structure constraints;

Preliminary version of this paper was presented at the 11th IFAC/IFORS/

IMACS/IFIP Conference on Large-Scale Systems: Theory and Applications,
2007, Gdansk, Poland.

1367-5788/$ see front matter # 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.arcontrol.2008.03.004

 Uncertainty;
 Delays.
The theory of large-scale systems is devoted to the problems
that arise from above difficulties. The theory answers the fundamental questions of how to break down a given control problem
into manageable subproblems which are only weakly related to
each other and can be solved independently. These general facts
lead to the opinion that no formal definition of the term large-scale
system is necessary. Instead, a more pragmatic view has been
adopted: A system is considered large-scale if it is necessary to
partition the given analysis or synthesis into manageable subproblems. As a result, the overall plant is no longer controlled by a
single controller but by several independent controllers which all
together represent a decentralized controller. This is the fundamental difference between feedback control of small and large
systems usually described by the idea of information structure.
The basic problem is to find control inputs ut on the basis
of the a priori knowledge of the plant S described by its model
M for a supposed class of disturbances wt and the control goal
given in the form of the design requirements DM, and the a
posteriori information about the outputs yt and the command
signals rt. The design problem is completely described by
the information given by these four quantities. The problem
consists of two phases:
 Design phase: Determine control laws on the basis of the a
priori information about the plant and the design requirements.

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L. Bakule / Annual Reviews in Control 32 (2008) 8798

 Working phase: Determine control inputs on the basis of the a

posteriori information about the system state delivered by the
outputs and the given command signals.
Classical information structure corresponds with centralized
control as illustrates Fig. 1 (a), while non-classical information
structure of decentralized control is shown in Fig. 1(b). The
decision makers and the controllers have available only parts of
the overall a priori and a posteriori information in decentralized
control (Bakule & Lunze, 1988; Lunze, 1992).
1.1. Basic concepts
There are available two main structures of the models of
large-scale systems distinguished by the degree to which they
reflect the internal structure of the overall dynamic system.
These structures are called multi-channel systems and
interconnected systems as illustrated in Fig. 2 (b) and (c).
Multi-channel systems input and output vectors are decomposed into subvectors, while the system is considered as one
whole. Interconnected systems operate with interactions
between subsystems. They are represented by signals through

Fig. 2. System structures: (a) centralized system; (b) N-channel system; (c)
interconnected system.

which subsystems interact among themselves. These signal are

internal signals of the overall system.
To cope with the aforementioned appearance of the
complexity issues several general methodologies have been
and are being elaborated. Most of them belong to one of the
following three groups (Siljak, 1978):
 Decentralization;
 Decomposition;
 Robustness and model simplification.
Decentralization concerns the information structure inherent
in the solution of the given decision problem. The decentralization of the control law concerns on-line information about the
state and the command. It enables a completely independent
implementation of the control stations. The decentralization of
the process refers to the model and the design goals. It supports a
way in which the control stations are found independently by
solutions of separate design process. There is a variety of
different motivating reasons for the decentralization of the design
process such as for instance weak coupling of subsystems,
subsystems have contradictory goals, subsystems are assigned to
different authorities, or the high dimensionality of the overall
system. The principal ways of decentralizing the design tasks
belong to two groups (Lunze, 1992):
 Decentralized design for strongly coupled subsystems;
 Decentralized design for weakly coupled subsystems.

Fig. 1. Control design: (a) classical information structure; (b) non-classical

information structure.

The decentralized design for strongly coupled subsystems

means that at least an approximate model of all other subsystems
must be considered for the design of any subsystem under the
current design, while the coupling can be neglected during
the design of individual control stations when considering the
decentralized design for weakly coupled subsystems. This
situation is illustrated in Fig. 3.

L. Bakule / Annual Reviews in Control 32 (2008) 8798

Fig. 3. Decentralization of the design task for subsystem 1: (a) weak interactions; (b) strong interactions.

Several decomposition approaches have been elaborated to

simplify the analysis and synthesis tasks for large-scale
systems. The main goal of the decomposition is the reduction
of computational complexity. These approaches can classified
as follows:






Disjoint subsystems;
Overlapping subsystems;
Symmetric composite systems;
Multi-time scale systems;
Hierarchically structured systems.

The first three items belong to strongly coupled subsystems,

while the last two items are weakly coupled subsystems
(Bakule & Lunze, 1988; Lunze, 1992; Siljak, 1991).
Robustness analysis has to exploit the character of
uncertainties mainly on the bases of the stability analysis of
coupled systems, while model simplification includes mainly
model reduction methods and approximations (Siljak &
Zecevic, 2005).
Delays are much more important than the accuracy of the
transmitted information due to the fact that feedback control
systems are quite robust to such inaccuracy. The presence of
delays is unavoidable under current technology trends of shared
digital networks and wireless connections. A key role plays the
structure and implementation issues of feedback control.
Decentralized control has the potential of being superior over
centralized control also in this respect, because sharing local
information may be relatively delay free (Baillieul & Antsaklis,
2007; Zhang & Xie, 2007).
1.2. Outline of the paper
The paper is focused on strongly coupled subsystems. It
surveys the recent achievements in decentralized control
design emphasizing nonlinearities, uncertainties, and delays

89

by using the powerful convex optimization framework

involving linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) (Boyd, El Ghaoui,
Feron, & Balakrishnan, 1994). Parametric uncertainties are
supposed within both interconnected systems and the designed
controllers. Thus, the resulting LMIs lead to the design of
resilient decentralized controllers with additive uncertainties.
The structures of gain matrices in decentralized control
correspond with some well-known forms introduced in the
theory of sparse matrices (Tewarson, 1973). A block-diagonal
form (BD) is used when considering disjoint subsystems or
symmetric composite systems, while a block-tridiagonal form
(BTD) corresponds with overlapping subsystems. A bordered
block-diagonal form (BBD) is desirable in distributed control
and in applications with communication overhead (Zecevic &
Siljak, 2005a). The survey considers three prototype problems:
The decentralized stabilization of nonlinear disjoint subsystems, H 1 control design of resilient output controllers for
overlapping subsystems, and H 2 control design of delayed
symmetric composite systems. An extension to decentralized
control design for interconnected subsystems with a communication overhead is included. References for delay free
systems and delayed systems are distinguished.
The control stations can be designed in connection with the
subsystem model only in weakly coupled subsystems. It means
that the design problems are completely independent for all
controllers. The controllers will behave similarly if the
interconnections are sufficiently weak. Conceptual insight
and useful solutions of problems based on this rather primitive
division of the global design problem are almost exhausted.
Recently, Becerril, Aghdam, and Yurkevich (2007) have
applied generalized sampling on decentralized control of
two-time scale systems and Aghdam and Davison (2007) have
proposed decentralized switching control for hierarchical
systems. Cantoni et al. (2007) proposed decentralized as well
as distributed control for irrigation networks modeled as a
hierarchical system. The use the standard sequential design,
where the output from the previous pool is considered as a
known disturbance entering into the current pool under control
design. The main future trend in decentralized control should
concern more sophisticated and advanced division approaches
which correspond with strongly coupled systems. It motivates
to restrict this survey on the classes of strongly coupled
subsystems.
The origin and the rapid development of decentralized
control design methods began since the 1970s. Various
decentralized control design structures and algorithms have
been developed to present the flexibility and superiority of this
approach for different classes of interconnected systems.
The presentation cannot be encyclopedic due to space
limitation. A large number of valuable and promising results
had to be omitted though they deserve to be included in any
overview presenting decentralized control issues. There is
available a variety of monographs and survey papers including
numerous references therein (Bakule & Lunze, 1988;
Bernussou & Sebe, 2002; Gajic & Ikeda, 2004; Gajic & Shen,
1993; Jamshidi, 1997; Jiang, 2003; Lunze, 1992; Siljak, 1991,
1996; Siljak & Zecevic, 1999, 2005; Tamura & Yoshikawa,

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L. Bakule / Annual Reviews in Control 32 (2008) 8798

1990), which offer a more wider and deeper view to the readers
interested in decentralized control theory and practice.
Note only that the majority of references consider zero
reference signals corresponding with a standard requirement on
the closed-loop system stability under uncertainties and delays.
The decentralized servomechanism problem for nominally
linear interconnected systems with structured parameter
perturbations solved Vaz and Davison (1989) for non-zero
reference signals. Global decentralized output regulation for a
class of uncertain interconnected systems with nonlinear
exosystem derived for the first time Xi and Ding (2007).
Cantoni et al. (2007) use local non-zero reference signals
related to individual locally controlled pools of an open-water
channel.

DA t D F  tE

The actual tearing of the system may be performed from

either conceptual or numerical reasons. Conceptual reasons
correspond usually with the boundaries of physical subsystems.
Numerical reasons require to develop a universal decomposition technique. It leads to the notion of e decomposition when
considering disjoint subsystems. The idea od epsilon decomposition can be simply explained on a linear dynamic system
x AD eAC x, where the matrix AD diagA1 ; . . . ; AN ,
the matrix AC has all its elements smaller than one, and e is a
prescribed small number. The choice of e influences on the
strength of interconnections. If each subsystem Ai is stable, then
an appropriate choice of e preserves the weak coupling property
of the system and thereby the stability of the overall system.
The increasing threshold of e leads to the notion of nested e
decomposition (Siljak, 1991, 1996).
Consider the stabilization problem for N interconnected
subsystems with parameter uncertainties and delays with a
given decomposition in the form:
S : x i t

(3)

where  denotes the corresponding subindices in all DA in (1)

and (2). D and E are constant matrices corresponding with
the matrix DA t. Uncertainties are lumped in unknown
Lebesgue measurable functions F  satisfying the bounds.
T
F
F   I for all t  0. I denotes a unit matrix of appropriate
dimension.
The goal is to find a decentralized resilient controllerobserver in the form:
x i t Ai x i t Bi ui t K oi DK oi yi t  C i x i t;
ui t K ci DK ci xi t;

2. Disjoint subsystems

(4)

i 1; . . . ; N

where x i t is the ni -dimensional controller state of the

subsystem i. DK oi Doi F oi tEoi , DK ci Dci F ci tEci are
the i th observer and controller gain perturbations.
Doi ; Eoi ; Dci ; Eci are given constant matrices. F  t are
unknown arbitrarily time-varying Lebesgue measurable functions satisfying the relation F  tT F  t  I. K oi ; K ci are
the controller-observer gain matrices to be determined for all
i 1; . . . ; N.
T
Consider xe xT ; eT  , where et xt  x t denotes
the error vector. x and x are the overall system state vector and
the overall controller state vector. The overall augmented
systems (1)(4) result in
e t A d DA d xe t  d
x e t A DAx
where




A BK c
Ad 0
BK c
A
; A d
;
Ad 0
0
A  KoC



DA BDK c BDK c C
DAd
DA
; DA d
DA
DK o C
DAd

(5)

0
0


(6)

Ai DAi txi t Adi DAdi txi t  d Bi ui t

si t;
yi t C i xi t;

xi to Fi to ;

d  to  0;

i 1; . . . ; N
(1)
where xi t; ui t; si t; yi t are ni -, mi -, pi -, r i -dimensional
vectors of the subsystem states, control inputs, interconnection
inputs and measured outputs, respectively. Fi to is a given
initial function.
Interconnections are described in the form:
si t

DAdi j t are norm bounded uncertainties which admit the

standard structure:

N
X
Ai j DAi j tx j t Adi j DAdi j tx j t  d
j1

(2)
where d denotes a point time delay. Ai ; Adi ; Bi ; C i ; Ai j , and Adi j
are constant nominal matrices. DAi t, DAdi t, DAi j t, and

Note that the matrices K o and K c in (6) are block diagonal

matrices. The stability of the system (5)(6) is established
by using the LyapunovKrasovski functional when considering the Lyapunov functionals for individual subsystems.
These individual functions result in a global Lyapunov
functional
Z t
Vxe ; t xe tT Pe x m t
xe sT Qe xe s ds
(7)
td

where Pe 2 R2n2n > 0 and Qe 2 R2n2n

P> 0 with Pe
diagPs ; Pc and Qm diagQs ; Qc , n i ni . The matrices
Ps ; Pc ; Qs ; Qc have a block diagonal structure corresponding
with individual subsystems.
Taking the total time derivative of V with respect to the
system (5) and (6) leads, after lengthy but straightforward
computations, to a sufficient condition given in the form the
LMIs for given Pe and Qe . Suppose there exist block diagonal
matrices Y s ; Y c ; Y h and positive scalars e1 ; . . . ; e4 such the
LMIs

L. Bakule / Annual Reviews in Control 32 (2008) 8798

Ws
6 
6
6 
6
4 


Pa
Ls




Ps
0
Ls



X s Qs
0
0
Qs


3
Ad
0 7
7
0 7
7 < 0;
0 5
Ss

Wc
6 
6
6 
6
4 


Pc
Lc




ZcT
0
e3 I



have a feasible solution. The block matrices used in (8) mean

W s AX s X s AT BY s YsT B, W c AX c X c AT Y c YcT ,
W d BY d YdT BT Y h YhT , Ls e1 I; e2 I, P a DA ; Dc ,
P s ZaT ; ZbT , Lc e1 I; e3 I, P c DA ; Do ; DAd , Ss
T
T
Qs e4 EAd
EAd , and Sd 2Qs  e4 EAd
EAd . The necessary
linearization matrices used in the derivation of (8) are
1
1 T
1
1
X s P1
s , X c Pc , Y h e2 Ps Ec Ec Ps , Z a e1 EA Ps ,
1
1
Z b e2 Ec Pc , Z c e3 Ec CPc .
The resulting block diagonal gain matrices stabilizing the
system (1)(4) have the following form:
K c Y s Xs1 ;

K o Y c Xc1 CT CC T

1

(9)

The above prototype design of decentralized robust

resilient stabilizing controller is developed for the systems
with state delays as well as norm bounded uncertainties in
both the system and the observer-based controller gain
matrices. The motivating reasons why to include controller
uncertainties into the controller design are explained in
Istepanian and Whidborne (2001) and Mahmoud (2004). The
importance of non-fragile controllers with information
structure constraints is underlined when considering largescale systems.
Delay free systems include a number of interesting
recent results concerning designs of decentralized control of
interconnected systems with disjoint subsystems which are
formulated as standard convex programming problems. This
approach offers a possibility to apply a variety of algorithms
available in the linear or bilinear matrix inequalities framework.
Various recent results of this type include uncertain and nonlinear
systems satisfying quadratic constraints. Both structural and
algebraic enhancements of decentralized control with state or
static output feedback are presented in Siljak and Stipanovic
(2000a, 2001), Siljak and Zecevic (2005), and Zecevic and Siljak
(2004). An extension of these results on decentralized dynamic
output feedback control design are considered in Pagilla and
Zhou (2005) and Stankovic, Stipanovic, and Siljak (2007).
Zecevic and Siljak (2005a) introduced a BBD form for gain
matrices. It corresponds in a certain manner with an extension of
traditional decentralized control towards the concept of
distributed control developed for spatially interconnected
systems in DAndrea and Dullerud (2003), Langbort, Chandra,
and DAndrea (2004), and Dullerud and Andrea (2004). Chen
et al. (2005) developed LMI type robust H 1 control design by
using a homotopy method for interconnected systems, while
Yang and Wang (1999) present the solution in terms of Riccati
inequalities. Strong nonlinearities in both subsystems and
interactions consider within the concept of decentralized
output-feedback control for deterministic systems Krishnamurthy and Khorrami (2003) and Jiang (2002). Decentralized

X s Qs
0
0
Qs


3
Ad
0 7
7
0 7
7 < 0;
0 5
Ss

Wd
6 
6
4 


91

2DA
2e1 I



2DAd
0
2e4 I


3
2Ad
0 7
7<0
0 5
Sd

(8)

robust control problem are solved in Chen (1989, 1992) and Chen
and Han (1993). Decentralized adaptive control provide Shi and
Singh (1992) for systems with strong nonlinear interconnections
and Wu (2003) for uncertain interconnections. Decentralized
adaptive stabilization for interconnected stochastic systems
proposed Liu, Zhang and Jiang (2007) using the concept of inputto-state stability. An another interesting and practically important
result is decentralized adaptive stabilization of unknown
interconnected systems with hysteresis solve using the backstepping technique by Wen and Zhou (2007). Decentralized
stabilization is applied to flexible structures in Li, Kosmatopoulos, Ioannou, Ryaciotaki-Boussalis (2000) and Kobayashi,
Ikeda, and Fujisaki (2007) and to power systems Befekadu and
Erlich (2006). Robust decentralized control independent design
developed Kozakova and Vesely (2006), while Rosinova and
Vesely (2006) proposed the PID design by using LMIs.
Extensions to descriptor systems are presented in Wang and
Bao (2000) and Chen, Gui, and Zhai (2008). New results have
been obtained in decentralized output feedback control by
Orqueda, Zhang and Fierro (2007), Lee (2007), Xi and Ding
(2007), and Polendo and Qian (2007). Another interesting results
consider Borrelli et al. (2005) for hybrid systems, while Richards
and Chow (2007) present predictive control approach for systems
with coupled constraints.
Delayed systems with state delays consider Mukaidani,
Tanaka and Xu (2003) by using LMIs to solve a guaranteed cost
control problem, while Kown and Park (2006) solve the same
problem by using LMIs when considering delay in the feedback
loop. Decentralized control for dynamic routing in communication network proposed PIftar and Davison (2002). Kown
and Park (2006) introduce delays within the framework of
distributed control.
3. Overlapping subsystems
The decomposition of the overall system into disjoint
subsystems is not effective if the subsystems are strongly
coupled. It means that a given system has no epsilon
decomposition. Then, overlapping decomposition can be used
as an alternative way in which the subsystems share some
common parts. The overlapping subsystems may be weakly
coupled although disjoint subsystems are not, i.e. they may
have an overlapping epsilon decomposition (Siljak, 1996).
A systematic way of overlapping decomposition means
to expand the original system with strongly coupled subsystems
into a larger dimensional systems with weakly coupled
subsystems. There is a requirement of the relation between
both systems. The solution of a large-dimensional system must
include the solution of a lower dimensional original system. A
circle of ideas, methods and algorithms devoted to overlapping

92

L. Bakule / Annual Reviews in Control 32 (2008) 8798

decompositions has been formulated rigorously into a general

mathematical framework called the inclusion principle (Chu &
Siljak, 2005; Siljak, 1991). To recall what this principle means,
let us consider the problem of H 1 control design of resilient
output controllers for overlapping subsystems.
Suppose an uncertain system with a state point delay as
S : x t
A DAtxt B DBtut
(10)

Ad DAd txt  d B1 wt;

yt Cxt;

zt Gxt Hut;

xto Ft;

 d  to  0
where xt 2 Rn is the state, ut 2 Rm is the control input, d > 0
is the delay time, wt 2 R p is the disturbance input and belongs
to L2 0; 1, zt 2 Rq is the controlled output and Ft is a
given continuous initial function. The matrices A, B, Ad , B1 , C,
G, D are constant matrices. D D FtE are real-valued
norm bounded uncertainties, where D and E are given
constant matrices and Ft is an unknown time-varying matrix
satisfying F T tFt  I.
Suppose a prototype case with two overlapped subsystems in
states. It means that the matrices A, DAt, Ad , DAd t are
partitioned into 3  3 blocks with the overlapping in the block
22 as indicate the dash lines
(11

LMI provides a natural framework to solve the problem for

state feedback (Bakule, Rodellar, & Rossell, 2005; Liu, Jiang, Su,
& Chu, 2002) with an extension to static output feedback
(Zecevic & Siljak, 2004). It is important to recognize that the
system but with zero blocks 21 and 22 in (12) may lead to
unfeasible LMI solution. It means that the overlapped states have
no direct access from inputs. These two generic scenarios have
been classified as Type I and Type II, where Type I corresponds
with non zero blocks 21 and 22 while Type II considers them
as zero blocks. A suitable approach to design BTD controllers
for both types of overlapping structures leads to expansion
contraction relations for LTI delayless systems and contractibility
condition for controllers (Zecevic & Siljak, 2005b).
The construction of an expanded system starts with the
transformations:
x t Vxt;
where
2

I
60
V 6
40
0

xt U x t

3
0 0
I 07
7;
I 05
0 I

I 0
U 4 0 :5I
0 0

(16)

3
0
05
I

0
:5I
0

(17)

The transformations (16) and (17) lead in a simple natural

way to an
 expanded system withTthe state vector x2 repeated in
x T t= xT1 t; xT2 t; xT2 t; xT3 t . The expanded system has
the form:
S : x t
xt B DBtut

A DAt

The matrices B, DBt, B1 , DB1 t possess the structure of

matrices partitioned into 3  2 blocks corresponding with the
overlapped states as

A d DA d txt  d B 1 wt;
xt;
y t C

xt Hut;
z t G

(18)
o ;
x to ft

 d  to  0
(12

A VAU M;

With the system (10) we associate an inequality

kztk2  gkwtk2

(13)

where g is a given constant.

The design objective it to determine a static resilient robust
BTD controller for the system (10) possessing the overlapping
structure (11), (12) and satisfying H 1 -norm bound g (13).
Consider the controller K in the form:
ut K DKtyt

The systems S and S are related through the corresponding

matrices as

(14)

VDAtU;
DAt

VDBt;
DBt

(15
The uncertainty matrix DK DK F K tEK has the same
structure as K. The matrices DK ; EK are given.

A d VAd U M d ;

DA d t VDAd tU;

B 1 VB1 M 1 ;

GU L;
G

C CU Lc
(19)
where M, N, M d , M 1 and L are complementary matrices. We
associate the inequality with the system S

kztk2  gkwtk
2

The gain matrix has the structure

B VB N;

(20)

The objective is to design a decentralized resilient static

output controller
(21

L. Bakule / Annual Reviews in Control 32 (2008) 8798

such that g g. One possible set of conditions satisfying the

inclusion principle has the form:
MV 0;

M d V 0;

N 0;

M 1 0;

LV 0

(22)

Supposing that these relation are satisfied, then the controller

K designed in the expanded space can be contracted into the
original space as

K KV;

DKt DKtV

(23)

The overlapping controller design is illustrated in Fig. 4. The

decentralized controller design is available by using the LMI
approach in Liu et al. (2002), Bakule et al. (2005b), and Zecevic
and Siljak (2004).
Delay free systems include a large number of real world
systems which are composed of overlapping subsystems. The
Principle contributed by a clear conceptual insight and
zguner, 1990;
effective solutions (Iftar; 1993a,b; Iftar & O

Ikeda & Siljak, 1986; Ikeda, Siljak, & White, 1981, 1984;
Siljak, 1978, 1996). The structure of expansioncontraction
relations including contractibility of controllers is analyzed
in Bakule, Rodellar, and Rossell (2000), Siljak and
Stipanovic (2000), Stankovic and Siljak (2001), Stankovic
et al. (2007), and Chu and Siljak (2005) for LTI systems,
while Bakule, Rodellar and Rossell (2002) and Stankovic

93

and Siljak (2003) have dealt with LTV systems. Optimization

issues were addressed to H 2 approaches in Ikeda et al.
(1981), Siljak (1991), and Bakule, Rodellar, and Rossell
(2000a) and to H 1 approach in Bakule et al. (2005).
Recently, a variety of new results has been achieved by using
the LMI approach by Siljak and Zecevic (2005), Zecevic &
Siljak (2005b) and Swarnakar, Marquez and Chen (2007).
Multi-overlapping decomposition structure consider Chen
and Stankovic (2005). Numerous extensions of the Principle
include specialization on mechanical systems by Bakule and
zguner
Rodellar (1995), hybrid systems by P Iftar and O

(1998), sliding mode control by Akar and Ozguner (2002),

and Petri nets by Aybar andP Iftar (2002). Overlapping
decentralized control was applied to power systems by Siljak
(1991), Chen and Stankovic (2005, 2007) as well as to
platoon of vehicles by Stankovic, Stanojevic, and Siljak
(2000) and Espinosa et al. (2007), and formation of aerial
vehicles by Stipanovic, Inalhan, Teo, and Tomlin (2004). An
application to web handling systems was offered by
Benlatreche, Knittel, and Ostertag (2005) and Sakamoto
and Kobayashi (2004), while Jung, Choi, and Seo (2000)
have proposed an active suspension system for a car model.
The superiority of decentralized control schemes over
centralized ones led to the concept of multiple control
schemes when taking into account reliability issues of
controllers (Siljak, 1991). The design of reliable controllers
is closely related to overlapping decompositions. New
applied results in reliable overlapping control are presented
in Bakule, Paulet-Crainiceanu, Rodellar, and Rossell (2005).
Delayed systems have been considered to solve the routing
problem in communication networks Ataslar andP Iftar (1999).
Bakule et al. (2005) developed a version of H 1 control for
continuous-time state delayed systems, while Bakule, Rodellar,
and Rossell (2006) present H 2 control for discrete-time state
delayed systems.
4. Symmetric composite systems
Symmetric composite systems belong to a class of
interconnected disjoint subsystems with a specific structure.
They are characterized by the identity of the subsystem
dynamics and the symmetry of the interconnections. The
symmetry gives the rise to essential simplifications of the
modeling, analysis, and synthesis. Particularly, the problem of
decentralized control design for the overall system can be
reformulated as a robust centralized control problem for a
reduced order design system. Thus, the complexity of the
design process is essentially reduced. H 2 control design of
delayed symmetric composite systems has been selected to
illustrate the main idea of this procedure.
Consider the symmetric composite system in the form:
S : x i t A DAi txi t Adi DAdi txi t  d
B DBi tui t si t;

Fig. 4. Overlapping controller design: (a) overlapping subsystems; (b)

expanded system; (c) decentralized controller design; (d) contracted closedloop system.

yi t C DCi xi t; xi to Fi to ;
 d  to  0; i 1; . . . ; N

(24)

94

L. Bakule / Annual Reviews in Control 32 (2008) 8798

The systems (24) and (25) can be rewritten into the form:

Interconnections are considered as

si t

x t A DAtxt
A d DA d txt  d

N
X
Aq DAi j tx j t Adq DAdi j tx j t  d

B DBtut;

j1

(25)
where the meaning of vectors and matrices in (24) and (25)
remains the same as in (1) and (2) including the norm
bounded character of uncertainties. Notice that the nominal
matrices A; B; C; Aq ; Adq are identical for all subsystems.
Constant matrices D ; E correspond with the uncertainty
matrix D analogously as in (3). They are identical for all
subsystems in (1) and (2). Uncertainties are lumped in
F  t.
With the systems (24) and (25) we associate a quadratic cost:
J

N
X

Ji

i1

N Z 1
X
i1

xTi tQxi t uTi tRui t dt

(26)

where Q and R are given positive definite matrices.

The design objective is to find global decentralized resilient
dynamic controller quadratically stabilizing the system (24)
and (25) which guarantees the upper bound of the cost (26) for
any admissible uncertainty. Suppose the decentralized dynamic
full order controller which is composed of N local feedback
controllers:
x i t Ac DAc txi t Bc DBc tyi t;
ui t Cc DCc txi t;

(27)

i 1; . . . ; N

yt C DCtxt;

xto Fo to ;

d  to  0
(30)

Now, it is sufficient to present the key relation only for the

We get
matrix A.
diagAs ; :::;As ; Ac
T T AT

(31)

where
As A  A q ;

Ac As NAq

(32)

when applying the transformation (29) on the system (30).

Analogous relations hold for the matrix A d . It leads to two low
order systems which describe the dynamic properties of the
original system. Thus, the original problem is reformulated as a
control problem for two simultaneous plants. The term NAq in
(32) is decomposed into a nominal part Ao N=2Aq and an
uncertain norm bounded part DAo t Do F o tEo , where
Do Eo N=2Aq and F o tT F o t  1. These manipulations
result in a control design model:
x r t A r DA r txr t A dr DA dr txr t  d

B DBtu
r t;

(33)

yr t C DCtx
r t
where

where x i t is the controller state of the subsystem i. Ac ; Bc ; C c

are the controller matrices to be determined. These matrices are
identical for all subsystems.
To get a more insight into the structure of this class of
systems consider the transformation T of the state vector
T
xt xT1 t; . . . ; xTN t
x t Txt

(28)


Ar A 


N
 1 Aq ;
2

DAr DAt DAo t

(34)

with DAt DA F A tEA . Analogous relations hold for the

delayed terms in (33).
A quadratic cost associated with the system (33) is
Z 1
Jr
xTr tQxr t uTr tRur t dt
(35)
0

with

The design objective is to determine a dynamic controller:

2

N  1I
I
6
I
N
 1I
16
6
..
..
T 6
.
.
N6
4 I
I
I
I
2
I
0
... 0
6 0
I
... 0
6 .
..
..
1
6
.
T 6 .
.
}
.
4 0
0
...
I
I I . . . I

...
...
}
...
...

I
I
..
.
N  1I
I

3
I
I 7
7
.. 7;
. 7
7
I 5
I

x r t Ac DAc txr t Bc DBc tyr t;

(36)

ur t Cc DCc txr t

3
I
I7
.. 7
.7
7
I5
I
(29)

which drives the system (33) optimally with a guaranteed cost

for any admissible uncertainty. This is a centralized control
design problem which can be solved by using the LMIs
(Mahmoud, 2004). A feasible solution of the problem (33)
(35) leads to the determination of the matrices Ac ; Bc ; C c and
the upper bound on cost J o .
The implementation of the matrices Ac ; Bc ; Cc into the
decentralized controller (27) leads to the basic result. The
closed-loop system (24), (25), (27) is quadratically stable with a

L. Bakule / Annual Reviews in Control 32 (2008) 8798

guaranteed upper bound cost J f NJ o , where the function

f N presents for instance (Yang & Zhang, 1995).
Delay free systems are considered in Hovd and Skogestad
(1994), Liu and Zhang (1999), Xiaoping (1992), Huang, Lam,
Yang, and Zhang (1999), and Wang and Zhang (2000).
Regional pole assignment by state feedback proposed Liu, Jing
and Zheng (2006). Bakule and Rodellar (1996) and Yang and
Zhang (1995) deal with the Ac ; Bc ; C c complexity reduced
problem of decentralized stabilization. An extension to statedependent H 1 switched decentralized control design with
decentralized supervisor derived Bakule (2007). Decentralized
H 1 control and reliability issues developed Lam and Huang
(2007). Yan and Xie (2003) present a reduced-order control
design for a class of similar nonlinear systems. Real world
symmetric composite systems can be found in parallel systems
such as flow splitting parallel reactors with combined
precooling Hovd and Skogestad (1994), electric power systems
operating in parallel Bakule and Lunze (1988) and Lunze
(1992), industrial manipulators with several degrees of freedom
Vukobratovic and Stokic (1982), flexible structures (Trachtler,
1991), space crystal furnace Ebert (1999), homogeneous
interconnected systems such as seismic cables El-Sayed and
Krishnaprasad (1981), or in various formation problems of
vehicles in cyclic pursuit solved by using circulant matrices in
Marshall, Broucke, and Francis (2004) and Roberts and Stilwell
(2006). Steward, Gorinevsky, and Dumont (2003) present a
spatially distributed system applied to the paper machine
problem. Other interesting results can be found in Hovd and
Skogestad (1994) and Yang, Lam, and Zhang (1996).
Delayed systems have been considered within the framework of the guaranteed cost control design for state delayed
uncertain systems by Bakule (2005), while Bakule (2006) deals
with the resilient stabilization by using the LMIs.

Fig. 5. Feedback structures: (a) decentralized control; (b) distributed control.

95

5. Decentralized networked control

The current state of art as well as possible future trends in
technology advances in real world large scale and complex
systems, low cost processing, and communications lead to
intensively increasing complexity of control systems. It
motivates the development of new theoretic approaches to
control systems. Two main changes in the control system
research directions are the explicit considerations of the interconnections and a renewed emphasis on distributed control
systems which is closely related to decentralized control of
large-scale systems (Baillieul & Antsaklis, 2007).
The notion of distributed control illustrates Fig. 5. Fig. 5(a)
shows decentralized controller in a BD form, while Fig. 5(b)
presents a distributed controller where dashed lines correspond
with off-diagonal blocks given by communication links.
Recently, new methods and algorithms have been proposed to
include communication issues into the decentralized control
design framework. Such extensions concern the communication
among subsystems, local controllers, and communication in the
feedback loop. Though a variety of structures and models in this
framework have been analyzed, there remains a gap between
decentralized control and control over networks. Current trends
in the use of networks for distributed control, diagnosis, and
safety present Moyne and Tilbury (2007) with an emphasis on the
network performance characteristics such as delay, delay
variability, and determinism. Communication requirements for
decentralized control systems with noiseless digital channels and
bounded system noise present Yuksel and Basar (2007) and
Yuksel and Basar (2006). Two-agent optimal formation control
problem with limited communication capacity consider Shi et al.
(2005). Decentralized synchronization of an uncertain timevarying network including several synchronization criteria are
given in Zhong, Dimirovski, and Zhao (2007). The dynamics of
local estimator-controller scheme with communication among
vehicles in cooperative formations are studied by Smith and
Hadaegh (2007). Hristu-Varsakelis (2005) surveys feedbackbased communication including a BD gain matrix for a
networked control system and the effects resulting from
unreliable communication links on the performance. Narendra,
Oleng, and Mukhopadhyay (2006) demonstrate through simulation that the significant improvement in transient responses of the
disjoint subsystems can be achieved with communication at
relatively few instants of time. Roberts and Stilwell (2006) deal
with decentralized control and estimation with a circulant
communication network. Roberts and Stilwell (2005) developed
decentralized control over periodic fast switching network
applied to autonomous vehicle platoon with the network
characterized by using the graph theoretic issues. Dynamic
graphs present a new promising approach elevating the role of
interconnections on the same level as subsystems to shape the
performance of coupled systems (Siljak, 2008). Rotkowitz and
Lall (2006) consider the problem of constructing decentralized
control minimizing a norm of the closed-loop subject to a
subspace constraint by using the concept of quadratic invariance.
Langbort, Gupta and Murray (2006) developed the LMI type
condition for the existence of a decentralized controller for

96

L. Bakule / Annual Reviews in Control 32 (2008) 8798

heterogenous interconnected subsystems with failing communication channels. Stubbs, Vladimerou, Fulford, Strick, and
Dullerud (2006) describe the hovercraft flexible testbed for
decentralized control of multiple autonomous vehicles that are
wirelessly networked and can be commanded from the Internet.
Cantoni et al. (2007) present preliminary field trials of
decentralized and distributed control design for the irrigation
open-water channel.
Future research effort should consider the analysis and
synthesis of complex strongly interconnected systems controlled over realistic decentralized communication channels.
Performance of networked control systems and its limits are
key issues determined primarily by delays and dropped packets.
Reliability, sensor failures, actuator constraints as well as the
performance degradation under communication failures, reconfigurable control, and the emphasis on increased autonomy
belong to other important current research challenges (Baillieul
& Antsaklis, 2007).
6. Conclusion
The paper presents past and present trends, and looks into
the future prospects in the area of decentralized control of
interconnected large scale and complex systems. The presentation has been focused on three important classes of
decentralized control structures for strongly coupled complex
systems. An extension of decentralized control to networked
control systems is included. Due to our limitless desire to
control larger and more complex systems, decentralized control
remains a focal point of research in systems theory.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported in part by the Academy of Sciences
of the Czech Republic under Grant IAA200750802 and in part
by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports under
Grant LA 282.
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Lubomr Bakule received the PhD degree in Control Engineering from the
Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1974. Since
1974 he has been with the Institute of Information Theory and Automation,
Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, where he is a Director of
Research. He has held numerous visiting appointments abroad. He has published over 150 research papers and has led many research projects. His research
interests are in the theory and applications of robust decentralized control of
large-scale systems, networked control systems, delayed and switching control
systems, and structural control. He is Vice-Chair of the IFAC TC on Large Scale
Complex Systems.