Future directions of networked control systems: A combination of cloud control and fog control approach

Currently, we have witnessed that networked control technology has played a key role in Internet of Things (IoT). However, the volume, variety and velocity properties of big data from IoT make the traditional networked control systems (NCSs) can not meet the current requirements. Due to this, cloud control systems have emerged as a new control paradigm which bring lots of benefits and have played a key role in current IoT society. Despite cloud control systems have tremendous advantages, there are still lots of tough challenges such as latency, network congestion and etc., which hinder the development of cloud control systems. For these challenges, we extend the cloud control systems to the cloud fog control systems which bring the fog computing into the NCSs design. First, some recent studies of fog computing have been surveyed. Second, a new architecture of NCSs based on cloud computing and fog computing has been proposed. Then, an incentive mechanism has been designed for the cloud fog control systems. In the end, the cases of control tasks offloading and a simple platform of cloud fog control systems have been studied.