Supervisory Control of Extended Finite Automata Using Transition Projection

Report, 2012

A limitation of the Ramadge and Wonham framework for the supervisory control theory is the explicit state representation using finite automata, often resulting in complex and unintelligible models. Extended finite automata (EFAs), i.e., deterministic finite automata extended with variables, provide compact state representation and then make the control logic transparent through logic expressions of the variables. A challenge with this new control framework is to exploit the rich control structure established in RW framework. This paper studies the decentralized control structure with EFAs. To reduce the computation complexity, the controller is synthesized on the model abstraction of subsystems and the global model of the entire system is unnecessary. Sufficient conditions are presented to guarantee the decentralized supervisors result in maximally permissive and nonblocking control to the entire system.