Distributed computation of supremal conditionally controllable sublanguages

In this paper, we further develop the coordination control framework for discrete-event systems with both complete and partial observations. First, a weaker sufficient condition for the computation of the supremal conditionally controllable sublanguage and conditionally normal sublanguage is presented. Then we show that this condition can be imposed by synthesising a-posteriori supervisors. The paper further generalises the previous study by considering general, non-prefix-closed languages. Moreover, we prove that for prefix-closed languages the supremal conditionally controllable sublanguage and conditionally normal sublanguage can always be computed in the distributed way without any restrictive conditions we have used in the past.     

On-line control of partially observed discrete event systems

It is well known that the design of supervisors for partially observed discrete-event systems is an NP-complete problem and hence computationally impractical. Furthermore, optimal supervisors for partially observed systems do not generally exist. Hence, the best supervisors that can be designed directly for operation under partial observation are the ones that generate the supremal normal (and controllable) sublanguage. In the present paper we show that a standard procedure exists by which any supervisor that has been designed for operation under full observation, can be modified to operate under partial observation. When the procedure is used to modify the optimal full-observation supervisor (i.e., the one that generates the supremal controllable language), the resultant modified supervisor is at least as efficient as the best one that can be designed directly (that generates the supremal normal sublanguage). The supervisor modification algorithm can be carried out on-line with linear computational complexity and hence makes the control under partial observation a computationally feasible procedure.     

Modular Control of Discrete-Event Systems With Coalgebra

Modular supervisory control of discrete-event systems, where the overall system is a synchronous (parallel) product of subsystems, is considered. The main results of this paper are formulations of sufficient conditions for the compatibility between the synchronous product and various operations stemming from supervisory control as supervised product and supremal controllable sublanguages. These results are generalized to the case of modules with partial observations: e.g., modular computation of supremal normal sublanguages is studied. Coalgebraic techniques based on the coinduction proof principle are used in our main results. Sufficient conditions are derived for modular to equal global control synthesis. An algorithmic procedure for checking the new conditions is proposed and the computational benefit of the modular approach is discussed and illustrated by comparing the time complexity of modular and monolithic computation.     

Observability and decentralized control of fuzzy discrete-event systems

Fuzzy discrete-event systems as a generalization of (crisp) discrete-event systems have been introduced in order that it is possible to effectively represent uncertainty, imprecision, and vagueness arising from the dynamic of systems. A fuzzy discrete-event system has been modeled by a fuzzy automaton; its behavior is described in terms of the fuzzy language generated by the automaton. In this paper, we are concerned with the supervisory control problem for fuzzy discrete-event systems with partial observation. Observability, normality, and co-observability of crisp languages are extended to fuzzy languages. It is shown that the observability, together with controllability, of the desired fuzzy language is a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a partially observable fuzzy supervisor. When a decentralized solution is desired, it is proved that there exist local fuzzy supervisors if and only if the fuzzy language to be synthesized is controllable and co-observable. Moreover, the infimal controllable and observable fuzzy superlanguage, and the supremal controllable and normal fuzzy sublanguage are also discussed. Simple examples are provided to illustrate the theoretical development.     

On computation of supremal controllable, normal sublanguages

In this paper, we present an algorithm for the computation of the controllable, normal sublanguage of a given language, encountered in the solution of the supervisory control of discrete-event systems under partial observation. The algorithm produces the desired result under certain assumptions on the plant and the event projection map. In particular, the plant has to be nonblocking. The advantage of the algorithm over the solution available in the literature is that it does not involve iterations on the supremal controllable sublanguage and supremal normal sublanguage operators.     

Characterizations and effective computation of supremal relatively observable sublanguages

Recently we proposed relative observability for supervisory control of discrete-event systems under partial observation. Relative observability is closed under set unions and hence there exists the supremal relatively observable sublanguage of a given language. In this paper we present a new characterization of relative observability, based on which an operator on languages is proposed whose largest fixpoint is the supremal relatively observable sublanguage. Iteratively applying this operator yields a monotone sequence of languages; exploiting the linguistic concept of support based on Nerode equivalence, we prove for regular languages that the sequence converges finitely to the supremal relatively observable sublanguage, and the operator is effectively computable. Moreover, for the purpose of control, we propose a second operator that in the regular case computes the supremal relatively observable and controllable sublanguage.     

Robust nonblocking supervisory control of discrete-event systems

In this note, we generalize a robust supervisory control framework to deal with marked languages. We show how to synthesize a supervisor to control a family of plant models, each with its own specification. The solution we obtain is the most general in that it provides the closest approximation to the supremal controllable sublanguage for each plant/specification pair. We end the note by extending these results to deal with timed discrete-event systems.     

Active diagnosis of discrete-event systems

The need for accurate and timely diagnosis of system failures and the advantages of automated diagnostic systems are well appreciated. However, diagnosability considerations are often not explicitly taken into account in the system design. In particular, design of the controller and that of the diagnostic subsystem are decoupled, and this may significantly affect the diagnosability properties of a system. The authors present an integrated approach to control and diagnosis. More specifically, they present an approach for the design of diagnosable systems by appropriate design of the system controller. This problem, which they refer to as the active diagnosis problem, is studied in the framework of discrete-event systems (DESs); it is based on prior and new results on the theory of diagnosis for DESs and on existing results in supervisory control under partial observations. They formulate the active diagnosis problem as a supervisory control problem where the legal language is an “appropriate” regular sublanguage of the regular language generated by the system. They present an iterative procedure for determining the supremal controllable, observable, and diagnosable sublanguage of the legal language and for obtaining the supervisor that synthesizes this language. This procedure provides both a controller that ensures diagnosability of the closed-loop system and a diagnoser for online failure diagnosis. The procedure can be implemented using finite-state machines and is guaranteed to converge in a finite number of iterations. The authors illustrate their approach using a simple pump-valve system     

On supervisory control of sequential behaviors

The authors address the supervisory synthesis problem of controlling the sequential behaviors of discrete-event dynamical systems (DEDSs) under complete and partial information through the use of synchronous composition of the plants and the supervisors. The authors present the notion of complete languages, discuss some of its algebraic properties, and show its close relation to ω-languages. The authors prove that the supremal (closed) complete and controllable sublanguage of a given language exists, and present an algorithm to compute it. They present a closed-form expression for the supremal ω-controllable sublanguage of a given ω-language in terms of the supremal (closed) complete and controllable sublanguage. This closed-form expression suggests that certain operations on a given ω-language can alternatively be achieved by performing certain other similar operations on its prefix (which is a finite language) and then taking the limit (to obtain the desired ω-language). A necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a supervisor in case of partial observation is presented in terms of ω-observability. Notion of ω-normality is also introduced, and a closed-form expression for the supremal ω-normal sublanguage, in terms of the supremal closed, complete, and normal sublanguage, is presented     

Relative coobservability for decentralised supervisory control of discrete-event systems

In this paper, we study the concept of relative coobservability in decentralised supervisory control of discrete-event systems under partial observation. This extends our previous work on relative observability from a centralised setup to a decentralised one. A fundamental concept in decentralised supervisory control is coobservability (and its several variations); this property is not, however, closed under set union, and hence there generally does not exist the supremal element. Our proposed relative coobservability, although stronger than coobservability, is algebraically well behaved, and the supremal relatively coobservable sublanguage of a given language exists. We present a language-based algorithm to compute this supremal sublanguage; the algorithm allows straightforward implementation using off-the-shelf algorithms. Moreover, relative coobservability is weaker than conormality, which is also closed under set union; unlike conormality, relative coobservability imposes no constraint on disabling unobservable controllable events.     

Controllability and control-invariance in discrete-event systems

Recently, for discrete-event systems modelled by automata, Ramadge and Wonham (1987 a, b) have proposed two control techniques called ‘supervisory control’ and ‘state feedback logic’. If control specifications are given in terms of predicates on the set of states, both techniques are applicable. This paper discusses the relationship between these techniques. It is shown that the language accepted by the discrete-event system with maximally permissive feedback is equal to the supremal controllable language if the predicate is control invariant. Moreover, it is shown that the predicate is control invariant if there exists a controllable language with a certain condition on the set of reachable states, but the converse does not hold in general     

Controllability of predicates and languages in discrete-event systems

In discrete-event systems, two control techniques, called supervisory control and state feedback logic, are applicable if control specifications are given in terms of predicates on the set of states. The concepts of controllability for both techniques has been proposed for the analysis and design of these techniques. First it is shown that controllability of the legal language for a given predicate is equivalent to that for the corresponding reachability set. Next we deal with the relationship between the supremal controllable subpredicate of the predicate and the supremal controllable sublanguage of the corresponding legal language     

Hierarchical control of timed discrete-event systems

An abstract hierarchical control theory is developed for a class of timed discrete-event systems (TDES) within the discrete-event control architectural framework proposed earlier by the authors. For this development, a control theory for TDES is introduced in the spirit of a prior theory of Brandin. A notion of time control structures is introduced, and on its basis a general property of hierarchical consistency is achieved by establishing control consistency — namely preservation of time control structures through the aggregation mapping in a two-level hierarchy.     

A New Class of Supervisors for Timed Discrete Event Systems Under Partial Observation

Brandin and Wonham have developed a supervisory control framework for timed discrete event systems (TDESs) in order to deal with not only logical specifications but also temporal specifications. Lin and Wonham have extended this framework to the partial observation case, and presented necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a nonblocking supervisor under partial observation. In this paper, we define a new class of supervisors for TDESs under partial observation. We then present necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a nonblocking supervisor defined in this paper. These existence conditions of our supervisor are weaker than those of Lin and Wonham's supervisor. Note, however, that the price that must be paid to weaken the existence conditions is the higher computational cost. Moreover, given a closed regular language, we study computation of a sublanguage that satisfies the existence conditions of our supervisor. We present an algorithm for computing such a sublanguage larger than the supremal closed, controllable, and normal sublanguage.     

Language-measure-theoretic optimal control of probabilistic finite-state systems

Supervisory control theory for discrete event systems, introduced by Ramadge and Wonham, is based on a non-probabilistic formal language framework. However, models for physical processes inherently involve modelling errors and noise-corrupted observations, implying that any practical finite-state approximation would require consideration of event occurrence probabilities. Building on the concept of signed real measure of regular languages, this paper formulates a comprehensive theory for optimal control of finite-state probabilistic processes. It is shown that the resulting discrete-event supervisor is optimal in the sense of elementwise maximizing the renormalized langauge measure vector for the controlled plant behaviour and is efficiently computable. The theoretical results are validated through several examples including the simulation of an engineering problem.     

On the existence of finite-state supervisors under partialobservations

We consider discrete-event systems under partial observations. We show the equivalence of the (M, Σ_c, L(G))-observability of a control specification and the (M, Σ_c, Σ*)-observability of its corresponding augmented language. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of finite-state supervisors under partial observations     

The infimal closed controllable superlanguage and its applicationin supervisory control

The supervisory control of discrete-event systems is investigated for the case in which nonblocking solutions are deemed inadequate because they are too conservative. For this purpose the infimal closed controllable superlanguage of a given language is studied. Two characterizations of the superlanguage are given, some of its properties are presented, and algorithms for its computation in the general case and in the regular case are proposed. An algorithm for the computation of the supremal controllable sublanguage is presented. It is shown that the computation of the infimal closed controllable superlanguage plays a central role in problems that involve a tradeoff between satisficing and blocking. The completely satisficing solution in supervisory control is characterized, and a general control problem called the supervisory control problem with blocking is introduced     

An algorithm for computing the mask value of the supremal normalsublanguage of a legal language

We consider the problem of finding the mask value of the supremal normal sublanguage L_R of some given language L. We describe a straightforward algorithmic solution that can be applied to existing off-line procedures for determining the supremal controllable and normal sublanguage of L and that does not require an explicit calculation of L _R. This problem is fundamental because it is related to the supervisory control problem under partial observation. Our algorithm applies only to closed languages     

On the supremal controllable sublanguage in the discrete-eventmodel of nondeterministic hybrid control systems

This paper is concerned with the logical control of hybrid control systems (HCS). It is assumed that a discrete-event system (DES) plant model has already been extracted from the continuous-time plant. The problem of hybrid control system design can then be solved by applying logical DES controller synthesis techniques to the extracted DES plant. Traditional DES synthesis methods, however, are not always applicable since the extracted plant DES will often exhibit nondeterministic transitions. This paper presents an extension of certain DES controller synthesis techniques to the nondeterministic control automaton found in HCS. In particular, this paper derives a formula computing the supremal controllable sublanguage of a given specification language under the assumption that the DES plant exhibits nondeterministic transitions