This paper describes an efficient method for scheduling an energy-consuming sensor sparingly in combination with an on-off controller, specifically for a finite horizon control problem in which only end states are critical. In certain low-power applications, such as autonomous micro-robotics, on-off controllers can be very efficient in operating piezoelectric actuators (and other capacitive actuation schemes) compared to traditional analog and PWM controllers. However, with existing sensing circuitry, sensing at the same frequency as control can be prohibitively expensive. Instead, a method is presented for best scheduling a limited number of sensor measurements and updates to control inputs during a finite horizon on-off control problem, in response to Gaussian disturbances and measurement noise. To simplify the problem, a lower bound for the expected value of a quadratic error function of the end states is found, which permits rapid evaluation of candidate sensor times.

This content is only available via PDF.
You do not currently have access to this content.