Minimal sensor activation and minimal communication in discrete-event systems

This paper is an overview of the current research on minimal sensor activation and minimal communication in discrete-event systems. In problems of sensor activation agents observing a discrete-event system can turn the sensors for their observable events on or off dynamically. In problems of communication agents observing a discrete-event system can communicate event observations to one another dynamically. In both cases, a result is that the observations made by an agent are dynamic. That is, whether or not an agent observes an event or receives a communication is dependent on other factors besides membership of certain events to certain predefined sets. We survey such problems and associated works where, additionally, the use of event sensors and communication of messages must be minimized with respect to certain criteria. The application areas considered are the diagnosis, state disambiguation and state estimation of discrete-event systems.     

Event‐triggered distributed constrained consensus

We consider a distributed consensus problem for continuous‐time multi‐agent systems with set constraints on the final states. To save communication costs, an event‐triggered communication‐based protocol is proposed. By comparing its own instantaneous state with the one previously broadcasted to neighbours, each agent determines the next communication time. Based on this event‐triggered communication, each agent is not required to continuously monitor its neighbours' state and the communication only happens at discrete time instants. We show that, under some mild conditions, the constrained consensus of the multi‐agent system with the proposed protocol can be achieved with an exponential convergence rate. A lower bound of the transmission time intervals is provided that can be adjusted by choosing different values of parameters. Numerical examples illustrate the results. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Minimal Communication for Essential Transitions in a Distributed Discrete-Event System

In a distributed discrete-event system with decentralized information, agents at the various sites (e.g., controllers or diagnosers) may be required to communicate in order to correctly perform some prescribed tasks. Bandwidth, power, or security constraints motivate the design of communication protocols among agents that minimize the number of required communications. This note presents an algorithm that can synthesize such a communication protocol given a set of ldquoessential transitionsrdquo that constitute the initial required communications. The synthesized communication protocol is shown to be minimal.     

Cooperative management of a net of intelligent surveillance agent sensors

The use of distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) techniques, particularly the multiagent systems theory, in a decentralized architecture, is proposed to manage cooperatively, all sensor tasks in a network of (air) surveillance radars with capabilities for autonomous operation. At the multisensor data fusion (DF) center, the fusion agent will periodically deliver to sensor agents a list with the system‐level tasks that need to be fulfilled. For each system task, indications about its system‐level priority are included (inferred global necessity of fulfilling the task) as well as the performance objectives that are required, expressed in different terms depending on the type of task (sector surveillance, target tracking, target identification, etc.). Periodically, the local manager at each sensor (the sensor agent) will decide on the list of sensor‐level tasks to be executed by its sensor, providing also the sensor‐level priority and performance objectives for each task. The problem of sensor(s)‐to‐task(s) assignment (including decomposition of system‐level tasks into sensor‐level tasks and translation of system‐level performance requirements to sensor‐level performance objectives) is the result of a negotiation process performed among sensor agents, initiated with the information sent to them by the fusion agent. With types of agents, a symbolic bottom‐up fuzzy reasoning process is performed that considers the available fused or local target tracks, surveillance sectors data, and (external) intelligence information. As a result of these reasoning processes, performed at each agent planning level, the priorities of system‐level and sensor‐level tasks will be inferred and applied during the negation process. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Computing observers from observation policies in discrete-event systems

This paper considers partially-observed discrete-event systems modeled by finite-state automata. The observation of event occurrences is associated with the transitions of the automaton model. That is, whether or not an event occurrence is observed is state-dependent, i.e., it depends on the transition in which the event label appears. This is in contrast to the case when observations are static and an event is either observed or not observed at every state in which it can occur. We refer to the set of transitions whose associated events are observed as an observation policy. Given an automaton model and an observation policy, we consider the problem of computing a deterministic generator of the language of event sequences that are observed using the automaton model and observation policy (i.e., an observer). Such a generator is useful, e.g., in problems of sensor activation for providing a deterministic mapping from event observations to sensor activation decisions when the decision to activate an event’s sensor is initially modeled as an observation policy. We propose an abstraction of the automaton model that may be used to represent an observer in certain cases. We illustrate cases where this abstraction accurately represents an observer when there is no ambiguity as to which event occurrences are observed following two observationally-identical strings. For the most general case considered, we demonstrate that verifying if the case holds is PSPACE-complete.     

Event-based consensus of multi-agent systems with general linear models

In this paper, the event-based consensus problem of general linear multi-agent systems is considered. Two sufficient conditions with or without continuous communication between neighboring agents are presented to guarantee the consensus. The advantage of the event-based strategy is the significant decrease of the number of controller updates for cooperative tasks of multi-agent systems involving embedded microprocessors with limited on-board resources. The controller updates of each agent are driven by properly defined events, which depend on the measurement error, the states of its neighboring agents and an arbitrarily small threshold. It is shown that the controller updates for each agent only trigger at its own event time instants. A simulation example is presented to illustrate the theoretical results.     

移动Agent发送包通信研究

通信是移动Agent系统的关键技术之一。目前为止已有很多相关研究人员提出了一些比较好的通信机制,基本上已经可以满足Agent通信的一些要求。但是如何能有效的实现已提出的机制,这方面的研究还不多。本文提出发送包方法来进行移动agent通信,采用一个HomeServer来记录每个代理的位置和状态信息,HomeServer配有一张事件列表配合每台主机通信平台的SendBox来处理未发送成功的消息。当通信双方驻留在主机上时,通信双方直接通信;当通信双方中有一方在迁移时,则将未发送成功的信息存入发送方通信平台上的SendBox,并在HomeServer的事件列表中增加一条记录,当迁移中的移动代理驻留在某一方的主机上时,由先前发送方平台的SendBox向接收方发送信息。采用发送包方法进行Agent通信能有效地实现位置透明性、异步性、可靠性和降低网络负载。     

Diagnosability of discrete event systems subject to permanent sensor failures

This paper considers a failure diagnosis problem for discrete event systems subject to permanent sensor failures. A notion of diagnosability subject to permanent sensor failures is introduced with respect to a certain nondeterministic observation mask. For its verification, an aggregated Mealy automaton with a deterministic and state-dependent observation mask is defined. It is shown that the diagnosability of the aggregated Mealy automaton is equivalent to the diagnosability of the original system subject to permanent sensor failures. Then, a method for verifying the diagnosability of the aggregated Mealy automaton is presented. Moreover, the delay bound within which the occurrence of any failure string can be detected subject to permanent sensor failures is computed.     

用可分负载理论分析无线传感器网络任务调度

针对无线传感器网络的任务如何在最短时间内完成且充分利用网络资源的问题,提出了一种基于可分负载理论的无线传感器网络任务调度算法（WDTA）.该算法根据网络中各个节点的处理能力和节点间的通信能力,将总任务从SINK节点下发至网络中.通过去除节点间的通信干扰来提高资源利用率和减少总任务完成时间.算法在两种分群结构的异构网络环境下进行了分析,得到了在各个节点上最合理的任务分配方案,以及最短的任务完成所需时间.理论分析了基于可分负载理论的无线传感器网络任务调度的极限情况.实验结果表明WDTA算法能够通过合理分配任务,而减少任务完成时间及节点能耗.该方案可以作为设计大规模无线传感器网络的原则.     

Fully distributed bipartite output consensus of heterogeneous linear multiagent systems based on event‐triggered transmission mechanism

This study investigates the fully distributed bipartite output consensus issue of heterogeneous linear multiagent systems (HLMASs) based on event‐triggered transmission mechanism. Both the cooperative interaction and the antagonistic interaction between neighbor agents are considered. A fully distributed bipartite compensator consisting of time‐varying coupling gain and dynamic event‐triggered mechanism is first proposed to estimate the leader's states. Different from the existing schemes, the proposed compensator is independent of any global information of the network topology, is capable of achieving intermittent communication between neighbors, and is applicable for the signed communication topology. Then the distributed output feedback control protocol is developed such that the fully distributed bipartite event‐triggered output consensus problem can be achieved. Moreover, we extend the results in HLMASs without external disturbances to HLMASs with disturbances, which is more challenging in three cases (a) the disturbances are not available for measurement, (b) the disturbances suffered by each agent are heterogeneous, and (c) the disturbances are not required to be stable or bounded. It is proven that the proposed controllers fulfill the exclusion of Zeno behavior in two consensus problems. Finally, two examples are provided to illustrate the feasibility of the theoretical results.     

Event based distributed kalman filter for limited resource multirobot cooperative localization

This paper presents a multirobot cooperative event based localization scheme with improved bandwidth usage in a heterogeneous group of mobile robots. The proposed method relies on an agent based framework that defines the communications between robots and on an event based Extended Kalman Filter that performs the cooperative sensor fusion from local, global and relative sources. The event is generated when the pose error covariance exceeds a predefined limit. By this, the robots update the pose using the relative information available only when necessary, using less bandwidth and computational resources when compared to the time based methods, allowing bandwidth allocation for other tasks while extending battery life. The method is tested using a simulation platform developed in the programming language JAVA with a group of differential mobile robots represented by an agent in a JADE framework. The pose estimation performance, error covariance and number of messages exchanged in the communication are measured and used to compare the traditional time based approach with the proposed event based algorithm. Also, the compromise between the accuracy of the localization method and the bandwidth usage is analyzed for different event limits. A final experimental test with two SUMMIT XL robots is shown to validate the simulation results.     

Context-Free Event Domains Are Recognizable

The possibly non-distributive event domains which arise from Winskel's event structures with binary conflict are known to coincide with the domains of configurations of Stark's trace automata. We prove that whenever the transitive reduction of the order on finite elements in an event domain is a context-free graph in the sense of Müller and Schupp, the event domain may also be generated from a finite trace automaton, where both the set of states and the concurrent alphabet are finite. We show that the set of graph grammars which generate event domains is a recursive set. We obtain altogether an effective procedure which decides from an unlabeled graph grammar whether it generates an event domain and which constructs in that case a finite trace automaton recognizing that event domain.     

使用事件自动机规约的C语言有界模型检测

提出使用事件自动机对 C 程序的安全属性进行规约,并给出了基于有界模型检测的形式化验证方法。事件自动机可以规约程序中基于事件的安全属性,且可以描述无限状态的安全属性。事件自动机将属性规约与C程序本身隔离,不会改变程序的结构。在事件自动机的基础上,提出了自动机可达树的概念。结合自动机可达树和有界模型检测技术,给出将事件自动机和C程序转化为可满足性模理论SMT(satisfiability modulo theory)模型的算法。最后,使用SMT求解器对生成的SMT模型求解,并根据求解结果给出反例路径分析算法。实例分析和实验结果表明,该方法可以有效验证软件系统中针对事件的属性规约。     

Cooperative Tasking for Deterministic Specification Automata

This paper proposes necessary and sufficient conditions for task decomposability with respect to an arbitrary finite number of agents. It is furthermore shown that fulfilling the decomposed local tasks by individual agents guarantees the satisfaction of the original global decomposable task. A divide‐and‐conquer approach for cooperative tasking among multi‐agent systems is proposed. The basic idea is to decompose an assigned global specification (given as a deterministic automaton) into subtasks for individual concurrent agents such that the fulfillment of these subtasks by each individual agent leads to the satisfaction of the global specification as a team. A cooperative scenario involving three robots has been implemented to illustrate the proposed technique. This work provides insights into what kinds of tasks can be achieved distributively, which helps designers specify achievable global tasks for a group of agents and design necessary information sharing among each other for a particular task.     

Cooperative Control of UAVs for Localization of Intermittently Emitting Mobile Targets

Compared with a single platform, cooperative autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) offer efficiency and robustness in performing complex tasks. Focusing on ground mobile targets that intermittently emit radio frequency signals, this paper presents a decentralized control architecture for multiple UAVs, equipped only with rudimentary sensors, to search, detect, and locate targets over large areas. The proposed architecture has in its core a decision logic which governs the state of operation for each UAV based on sensor readings and communicated data. To support the findings, extensive simulation results are presented, focusing primarily on two success measures that the UAVs seek to minimize: overall time to search for a group of targets and the final target localization error achieved. The results of the simulations have provided support for hardware flight tests.      

分布式无线传感器网络容错事件边界检测

事件监测是无线传感器网络的一种重要应用。针对该应用中软故障节点提供的错误数据会降低监测的准确性的问题,提出了一种分布式的容错事件边界检测算法。节点只需与邻节点交换一次传感数据,通过简单地计算识别故障;正常的事件节点利用统计比较的方法判断其是否处于事件边界,边界宽度可根据网络用户的要求调节。该算法执行时所需的通信量小,计算复杂度低,时延小,对大规模网络具有很好的可扩展性。仿真结果表明即使节点故障率很高,应用该算法仍可以获得很好的检测效果。     

Distributed Diagnosis Under Bounded-Delay Communication of Immediately Forwarded Local Observations

We study distributed failure diagnosis under a -bounded communication delay, where each local site transmits its observations to other sites immediately after each observation and the transmitted observation is received within at most more event executions of the plant. A notion of diagnosability is introduced so that any failure can be diagnosed within a bounded delay of its occurrence by one of the local sites using its own observations and the -bounded delayed observations received from other local sites. The local sites communicate among each other using an ldquoimmediate observation passing (iop)rdquo protocol, forwarding any observation immediately up on its occurrence. We construct models for the -bounded communication delay and use them to extend the system and nonfault specification models for capturing the effect of bounded-delay communication. By using the extended system and specification models, the distributed diagnosis problem under the immediate observation passing protocol is then converted to a decentralized diagnosis problem of our previous work, where the results are applied for verifying diagnosability and for synthesizing local diagnosers. Methods by which complexity of testing diagnosability and of online diagnosis can be reduced are presented. Finally, we compare the notions of diagnosability, codiagnosability, and diagnosability.     

Towards Spatial Window Queries Over Continuous Phenomena in Sensor Networks

Recent research on sensor networks has focused on the efficient processing of declarative SQL queries over sensor nodes. Users are often interested in querying an underlying continuous phenomenon such as a toxic plume, whereas only discrete readings of sensor nodes are available. Therefore, additional information estimation methods are necessary to process the sensor readings to generate the required query results. Most estimation methods are computationally intensive, even when computed in a traditional centralized setting. Furthermore, energy and communication constraints of sensor networks challenge the efficient application of established estimation methods in sensor networks. In this paper, we present an approach using Gaussian kernel estimation to process spatial window queries over continuous phenomena in sensor networks. The key contribution of our approach is the use of a small number of Hermite coefficients to approximate the Gaussian kernel function for subclustered sensor nodes. As a result, our algorithm reduces the size of messages transmitted in the network by logarithmic order, thus saving resources while still providing high-quality query results.     

Irony in a judicial debate: analyzing the subtleties of irony while testing the subtleties of an annotation scheme

Irony has been studied by famous scholars across centuries, as well as more recently in cognitive and pragmatic research. The prosodic and visual signals of irony were also studied. Irony is a communicative act in which the Sender’s literal goal is to communicate a meaning x, but through this meaning the Sender has the goal to communicate another meaning, y, which is contrasting, sometimes even opposite, to meaning x. In this case we have an antiphrastic irony. So an ironic act is an indirect speech act, in that its true meaning, the one really intended by the Sender, is not the one communicated by the literal meaning of the communicative act: it must be understood through inferences by the Addressee. The ironic statement may concern an event, object or person, and in this case, the Addressee, or a third person, or even the Sender itself (Self-irony). In this paper we define irony in terms of a goal and belief view of communication, and show how the annotation scheme, the Anvil-Score, and illustrate aspects of its expressive power by applying it to a particular case: ironic communication in a judicial debate.     

一种改进的移动Agent通信算法

如何实现远程Agent通信的位置透明性，保证消息不会因为目标Agent迁移而丢失，一直是移动Agent通信所面临的难题，在现有的很多移动Agent系统中都没有得到解决，作者在Mogent系统中提出的通信算法初步实现了通信的位置透明和可靠的消息传输，该文在原有处的基础上提出了一种改进的适于多种迁移和通信模式的移动Agent通信算法，进一步减少了Agent的地址注册开销和迁移受到的限制，并给出了一种避免地址欺骗攻击的解决方案。