Cloud-based control systems: a systematic literature review

Abstract

Control systems and computer science are two distinct and important fields of engineering. The development of cloud computing in computer science has become an enabler for the widely used controller in control systems to migrate to the cloud and has created a new field of research in cloud-based control systems (CCS). The paper used the systematic literature review approach to obtain insight into current CCS research. The objectives include a review in areas such as the demographics, topics of the research, evaluation method, and application domain. To that end, systematic literature review (SLR) has been conducted. The study obtained 64 primary studies from 581 articles. The CCS has a distinct characteristic; despite the fact that the cloud and network dynamics system, when coupled with the controlled plant, is inherently nonlinear, research efforts have used linear models with optimal control to approach it successfully in a limited case of control objectives. Furthermore, cloud-centric and cloud-fog network architecture approaches are considered in the studies—whereas, the quantitative method mainly uses simulation and discussion. Finally, the SLR summarizes open challenges for CCS in the future.