This thesis is part of a study of intelligent architecture for distributed control and communication systems. The study focuses on optimising control systems by evaluating the performance of middleware through quality of service (QoS) parameters and the optimisation of control using QoS policies.
The main aim of this work is to study, design, develop, and evaluate a distributed control architecture based on the Data-Distribution Service for Real-Time Systems (DDS) communication standard as proposed by the Object Management Group (OMG).
Communication requirements are increasing in line with requirements for intelligent distributed control systems. The role of middleware in supporting distributed control systems has also evolved in terms of characteristics. Among the characteristics now required by middleware are time management support and message flow control.
To offer these features, architectures must have formulas that enable monitoring and assessment of these characteristics. These formulas also give rise to the parameters of quality of service (QoS). To manage these parameters, the architecture must provide mechanisms so that they can be configured according to requirements. These mechanisms are known as QoS policies. In addition to evaluating the service provided, the architecture should be able to assess internal compliance with the control objectives, and this aim introduces the concept of control of quality (QoC) parameters.
There is a wide variety of systems that use intelligent distributed control architectures. Of these many environments, we can highlight wireless sensor networks (WSN) for the amount of information that can be transmitted; and networked control systems (NCS) for the processing restrictions. Both types of systems converge in wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSAN) as a paradigm of a system that supports a large amount of information with strict processing requirements. Current trends in distributed architectures are orientated towards WSAN systems.
Considering the above requirements, the principal theme of the thesis is a design for a distributed architecture for intelligent control that supports QoS through the measurement of parameters and through QoS management policies. These policies must enable a variation in the characteristics of communication in terms of control requirements, as expressed through the QoS parameters. The developed architecture has been called FSACtrl.
To determine the requirements of FSACtrl architecture, we have studied the reviews of key authors about the most important features of distributed architectures for system control. We have designed the FSACtrl architectural elements with these features in mind. The elements that support communications are based on the OMG DDS standard, while the control elements are based on the Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standard produced by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). 
The DDS model is based on the publication and subscription communication paradigm. In this thesis, an extension of a series of elements that enable the management of events during system operation is proposed for that part of the DDS standard known as Data Centric Model Publish Subscribe (DCPS). The SWE model is based on the standardisation of control through basic elements that are linked to perform more complex processing. This thesis proposes an extension to the control model with the inclusion of DCPS model communication components and support offered for QoC.
A design and control simulation environment has been implemented for validation of the architecture. The environment consists of a visual design application of the architectural elements that enable the execution of control algorithms; as well as a mobile robot simulator that can include various types of sensors, data sources, and obstacles in the environment in which the vehicle navigates.
Five Braitenberg vehicles have been implemented as an example of the use of FSACtrl architectural elements. The first three vehicles lack proper control functions, and so they are suitable for evaluating the performance of the architecture as middleware. The fourth vehicle includes basic control functions and is used to test the embedding of the control in the communications layer. The fifth vehicle includes logical processing and is used to test how control-based dynamic communication management enables the optimisation of system performance.
The results of experimental work developed are satisfactory. We have demonstrated the feasibility of the architecture as middleware for support control, and it has been demonstrated how system performance is optimised by the communications management of part of the control tasks. 
There are many and varied principal contributions in this thesis. We have made a major study of distributed control architectures. We have also studied the communication parameters that support control architectures. We have designed an architecture based on standards that can reach system characteristics, evaluate system performance using parameters, and use QoS policies to optimize performance relative to the control characteristics.
Finally, it is noteworthy that the thesis has been developed as part of the KERTROL and SIDIRELI research projects in which the author works as a member of the industrial computing research group at the Institute of Industrial Automation and Computer Engineering. The research work has been published in various conferences in the area – both nationally and internationally.