Analysis of Control Systems Under Sensor Timing Misalignments

This paper presents an in-depth analysis of the stability and performance of control systems experiencing sensor timing misalignments, a common challenge in practical applications such as autonomous vehicles and aerospace systems. We model multichannel sensor delays as independent random variables, capturing the variability of real-world systems where different sensors exhibit distinct and non-constant processing times or communication delays. This allows us to formulate the systems subject to delays as Markov Jump Linear Systems, enabling a rigorous examination of stability and performance under such misalignments. To validate the proposed methodology, we conduct experimental studies with two applications: an adaptive cruise controller and an inverted pendulum. In the analysis, we show that the impact of delays in different channels on a control system is typically not symmetric. Very often there is a sensor channel that is more critical for the controller and delays in that specific channel are hardly tolerated, while other channels can be delayed without compromising the stability and performance of the system.