A dual-channel secure transmission scheme for Internet-based networked control systems

Two significant issues in Internet-based networked control systems (INCSs), transport performance of different protocols and security breach from Internet side, are investigated. First, for improving the performance of data transmission, user datagram protocol (UDP) is adopted as the main stand for controllers and plants using INCSs. Second, a dual-channel secure transmission scheme (DCSTS)based on data transmission characteristics of INCSs is proposed, in which a raw UDP channel and a secure TCP (transmission control protocol) connection making use of SSL/TLS (secure sockets layer/transport layer security) are included. Further, a networked control protocol (NCP) at application layer for supporting DCSTS between the controllers and plants in INCSs is designed, and it also aims at providing a universal communication mechanism for interoperability of devices among the networked control laboratories in Beijing Institute of Technology of China, Central South University of China and Tokyo University of Technology of Japan. By means of a networked single-degree-of-freedom robot arm, an INCS under the new protocol and security environment is created. Compared with systems such as IPSec or SSL/TLS, which may cause more than 91% network throughput deduction, the new DCSTS protocol may yield results ten times better, being just 5.67%.