Symbolic Interpretation and Execution of Extended Finite Automata

Paper in proceedings, 2014

We introduce a symbolic interpretation and execution technique for Extended Finite Automata (EFAs) and provide an interpreter that symbolically interprets and executes EFAs w.r.t. their (internal) variables. More specifically, the interpreter iterates over the EFA transitions, and by passing each transition, it symbolically interprets and evaluates the condition on the transition w.r.t. the known values of variables, and leaves other variables intact, and when it terminates, it returns the residual model. It is shown that the behavior of the residual system with respect to the original system is left unchanged. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness and necessity of the symbolic interpretation and execution combined with abstractions for the nonblocking supervisory control of two manufacturing systems.