Sensing-Communication-Computing-Control Closed-Loop Optimization for 6G Digital Twin-Empowered Robotic Systems

Abstract

In recent decades, cyber-physical systems (CPSs) have received great attention due to their broad applications. This paper investigates CPS deployment in remote areas, specifically focusing on a digital twin-empowered unmanned robotic system. The system consists of a multifunctional unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), sensors, and actuators. The UAV carries communication and computing modules, acting as an edge information hub (EIH) that connects sensors and actuators—forming reflex-arc-like sensing-communication-computing-control (SC<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup>) loops. A digital twin is integrated into the EIH to emulate the system’s behavior and assist in the decision-making. To alleviate resource limitations in remote areas, we propose a goal-oriented closed-loop optimization scheme. The proposed scheme takes the SC<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> loop as an integrated structure and jointly optimizes uplink and downlink (UL&DL) communication and computing resources to minimize the total linear quadratic regulator (LQR) cost. To address the non-convex optimization problem, we derive the closed-form solution for intra-loop allocation and propose an efficient iterative algorithm for inter-loop optimization. Under the condition of adequate CPU frequency, we derive an approximate closed-form solution for inter-loop bandwidth allocation. Simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed scheme, which achieves a two-tier task-level balance within and across the SC<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> loops.