Networked control systems typically involve mul-
tiple subsystems which share the communication network. In
this system setting, besides the optimization of the quality of
control of the considered networked control system, the efficient
utilization of the communication resources contributes to part
of the overall control objective. By realizing the fact that the
packet delay variation can be roughly piecewise constant in
a relatively large system, a packet length allocation scheme is
proposed for this system setting. With the use of this scheme, the
performance of the networked control system can be maintained
at an acceptable level at the dramatically reduced cost of the
communication resources. As a result an optimized balance be-
tween the quality of control of the considered networked control
system and the quality of service of the communication network
can thus be achieved. Simulations illustrate the effectiveness of
the proposed scheme.