Detection of and responses to time delays in networked control systems

A system for controlling the effect of time delays in a networked control system (NCS), the system comprising:

• one or more computer readable storage media;
• and
• program instructions for a delay detector stored on at least one of the one or more computer readable storage media that, when executed by a processing system, direct the processing system to:
• in response to receiving one or more communication packets containing telemetry data from one or more devices in the NCS:
• detect a time delay event from an analysis of the one or more communication packets;
• and
• send, to at least one of the one or more devices in the NCS, a control signal determined in accordance with the time delay event.

An apparatus for time delay switch response in a networked control system (NCS):

• one or more computer readable storage media;
• a system model for determining the system state from the telemetry data stored on the one or more computer readable storage media;
• a controller;
• a transmitter,
• program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media that, when executed by a processing system, direct the processing system to:
• in response to receiving one or more communication packets containing telemetry data from one or more devices in the NCS, identify a time delay event by one or more of:
• determining that a timestamp of the one or more communication packets differs from a reference time value of the NCS by more than a stability value, and
• computing a time delay estimate and determining that the time delay estimate exceeds a stability value, and
• computing a transmitted state of the NCS from the telemetry data and the system model, computing an estimated state of the NCS from the system model, computing a modeling error by comparing the transmitted state to the estimated state, and determining that the modeling error exceeds a tolerable error value;
• and
• in response to the time delay event, instructing the transmitter to transmit one or more subsequent communication packets over a plurality of redundant communication channels.