title: On the application of different event-based sampling strategies to the control of a simple industrial process.
abstract: This paper is an experimental study of the utilization of different event-based strategies for the automatic control of a simple but very representative industrial process: the level control of a tank. In an event-based control approach it is the triggering of a specific event, and not the time, that instructs the sensor to send the current state of the process to the controller, and the controller to compute a new control action and send it to the actuator. In the document, five control strategies based on different event-based sampling techniques are described, compared, and contrasted with a classical time-based control approach and a hybrid one. The common denominator in the time, the hybrid, and the event-based control approaches is the controller: a proportional-integral algorithm with adaptations depending on the selected control approach. To compare and contrast each one of the hybrid and the pure event-based control algorithms with the time-based counterpart, the two tasks that a control strategy must achieve (set-point following and disturbance rejection) are independently analyzed. The experimental study provides new proof concerning the ability of event-based control strategies to minimize the data exchange among the control agents (sensors, controllers, actuators) when an error-free control of the process is not a hard requirement.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Automatic Control, UNED, C/ Juan del Rosal, 16, 28040 Madrid, Spain; E-Mail:  sdormido@dia.uned.es  (S.D.).
authors.forename: José
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sánchez
authors.forename: Miguel Ángel
authors.initials: MÁ
authors.lastname: Guarnes
authors.forename: Sebastián
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dormido