Value of Information in Feedback Control: Quantification

Although transmission of a data packet containing sensory information in a networked control system improves the quality of regulation, it has indeed a price from the communication perspective. It is, therefore, rational that such a data packet be transmitted only if it is valuable in the sense of a cost-benefit analysis. Yet, the fact is that little is known so far about this valuation of information and its connection with traditional event-triggered communication. In the present article, we study this intrinsic property of networked control systems by formulating a rate-regulation tradeoff between the packet rate and the regulation cost with an event trigger and a controller as two distributed decision makers, and show that the valuation of information is conceivable and quantifiable grounded on this tradeoff. In particular, we characterize an equilibrium in the rate-regulation tradeoff, and quantify the value of information $\text{VoI}_k$ there as the variation in a so-called value function with respect to a piece of sensory information that can be communicated to the controller at each time $k$. We prove that, for a multi-dimensional Gauss-Markov process, $\text{VoI}_k$ is a symmetric function of the discrepancy between the state estimates at the event trigger and the controller, and that a data packet containing sensory information at time $k$ should be transmitted to the controller only if $\text{VoI}_k$ is nonnegative. Moreover, we discuss that $\text{VoI}_k$ can be computed with arbitrary accuracy, and that it can be approximated by a closed-form quadratic function with a performance guarantee.