Engineering.Reference:0.7 - Control architecture design

Control Architecture Design (CAD) connects knowledge of dynamics, observations, uncertainty and actuation to a realizable control arrangement. Use it when a design must reconcile what the controller can know, which commands it can issue and when those commands can actually take effect. A changed sensor delay, actuator limit or execution rate can require a different design.

Systems Engineering supplies the wider system question. SYSE.5 develops functional and implementation alternatives; SYSE.6 makes the architecture decision. CAD contributes the control arrangements and feasibility conditions those alternatives can actually support. An information limit can change sensor provision; a tracking or input limit can change the admissible command; a missed timing condition can reopen processor provision or the decomposition. The receiving system design retains its other obligations and qualification needs. CAD is a direct Engineering constituent; using its results elsewhere does not add another membership or make it a Core dependency.

CAD.5 can be used independently to choose observations and retained state for a specified controller. It does not require a planner or multiple layers. CAD.1–CAD.4 develop a planning-and-feedback arrangement when separating those contributions is useful. A sufficient existing simple controller remains an alternative. The quantitative Methods principally cover sampled linear models with bounded uncertainty and specified feedback-law candidates, with a separate conditional continuous-time error-bound construction. They do not supply unrestricted controller synthesis, identification or physical qualification.

CAD.Reference:3.2 works through a joint design and a changed delay. The estimation error, tracking margin, input reserve and timing conditions describe the same loop; a result established for one observation or execution arrangement cannot simply be combined with a result established for another.