Age of Information as Performance Metric for Control of Wireless Cyber Physical Systems

This thesis promotes the novel Age of Information (AoI) performance metric as effective interface between the physical and digital components of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs). After exploring the relation between AoI and control performance in a simplified setup, a new dissemination protocol is developed and analyzed with the requirements of emerging CPSs in mind. Finally, the lower-bounds on the average AoI which have been established in literature are improved by exploiting Network Coding (NC) techniques and providing new algorithms to find age-optimal transmission schedules. The relevancy of this work is continuously ensured by a recurring example for new CPS application - the active control of Low Voltage (LV) electrical grids.