Reconfigurable Timed Discrete-Event Systems

In this paper, we present the first general solution to the automatic reconfiguration problem of timed discrete-event systems. We extend the recursive forcible backtracking approach which had been already solved the automatic reconfiguration problem of untimed discrete-event systems. In particular, we first solve the timed centralized reconfiguration problem using a specific timed eligibility set. Then, we study the identity between the solutions to an arbitrary timed centralized reconfiguration problem and its corresponding decentralized version. It turns out that the solutions to both cases are identical to each other. So, the solution obtained by the proposed theory is interestingly invariant to systematic distributions.Comment: 2020 24th International Conference on System Theory, Control and Computing (ICSTCC

Quantitatively-Optimal Communication Protocols for Decentralized Supervisory Control of Discrete-Event Systems

In this thesis, decentralized supervisory control problems which cannot be solved without some communication among the controllers are studied. Recent work has focused on finding minimal communication sets (events or state information) required to satisfy the specifications. A quantitative analysis for the decentralized supervisory control and communication problem is pursued through which an optimal communication strategy is obtained. Finding an optimal strategy for a controller in the decentralized control setting is challenging because the best strategy depends on the choices of other controllers, all of whom are also trying to optimize their own strategies. A locally-optimal strategy is one that minimizes the cost of the communication protocol for each controller. Two important solution concepts in game theory, namely Nash equilibrium and Pareto optimality, are used to analyze optimal interactions in multi-agent systems. These concepts are adapted for the decentralized supervisory control and communication problem. A communication protocol may help to realize the exact control solution in decentralized supervisory control problem; however, the cost may be high. In certain circumstances, it can be advantageous, from a cost perspective, to reduce communication, but incur a penalty for synthesizing an approximate control solution. An exploration of the trade-off between the cost and accuracy of a decentralized discrete-event control solution with synchronously communicating controllers in a multi-objective optimization problem is presented. A widely-used evolutionary algorithm (NSGA-II) is adapted to examine the set of Pareto-optimal solutions that arise for this family of decentralized discrete-event systems (DES). The decentralized control problem is synthesized first by considering synchronous communication among the controllers. In practice, there are non-negligible delays in communication channels which lead to undesirable effects on controller decisions. Recent work on modeling communication delay between controllers only considers the case when all observations are communicated. When this condition is relaxed, it may still be possible to formulate communicating decentralized controllers that can solve the control problem with reduced communications. Instead of synthesizing reduced communication protocols under bounded delay, a procedure is developed for testing protocols designed for synchronous communications (where not all observations are communicated) for their robustness under conditions when only an upper bound for channel delay is known. Finally a decentralized discrete-event control problem is defined in timed DES (TDES) with known upper-bound for communication delay. It is shown that the TDES control problem with bounded delay communication can be converted to an equivalent problem with no delay in communication. The latter problem can be solved using the algorithms proposed for untimed DES with synchronous communication

State Estimation of Timed Discrete Event Systems and Its Applications

Many industrial control systems can be described as discrete event systems (DES), whose state space is a discrete set where event occurrences cause transitions from one state to another. Timing introduces an additional dimension to DES modeling and control. This dissertation provides two models of timed DES endowed with a single clock, namely timed finite automata (TFA) and generalized timed finite automata (GTFA). In addition, a timing function is defined to associate each transition with a time interval specifying at which clock values it may occur. While the clock of a TFA is reset to zero after each event occurs and the time semantics constrain the dwell time at each discrete state, there is an additional clock resetting function associated with a GTFA to denote whether the clock is reset to a value in a given closed time interval. We assume that the logical and time structure of a partially observable TFA/GTFA is known. The main results are summarized as follows. 1. The notion of a zone automaton is introduced as a finite automaton providing a purely discrete event description of the behaviour of a TFA/GTFA of interest. Each state of a zone automaton contains a discrete state of the timed DES and a zone that is a time interval denoting a range of possible clock values. We investigate the dynamics of a zone automaton and show that one can reduce the problem of investigating the reachability of a given timed DES to the reachability analysis of a zone automaton. 2. We present a formal approach that allows one to construct offline an observer for TFA/GTFA, i.e., a finite structure that describes the state estimation for all possible evolutions. During the online phase to estimate the current discrete state according to each measurement of an observable event, one can determine which is the state of the observer reached by the current observation and check to which interval (among a finite number of time intervals) the time elapsed since the last observed event occurrence belongs. We prove that the discrete states consistent with a timed observation and the range of clock values associated with each estimated discrete state can be inferred following a certain number of runs in the zone automaton. In particular, the state estimation of timed DES under multiple clocks can be investigated in the framework of GTFA. We model such a system as a GTFA with multiple clocks, which generalizes the timing function and the clock resetting function to multiple clocks. 3. As an application of the state estimation approach for TFA, we assume that a given TFA may be affected by a set of faults described using timed transitions and aim at diagnosing a fault behaviour based on a timed observation. The problem of fault diagnosis is solved by constructing a zone automaton of the TFA with faults and a fault recognizer as the parallel composition of the zone automaton and a fault monitor that recognizes the occurrence of faults. We conclude that the occurrence of faults can be analyzed by exploring runs in the fault recognizer that are consistent with a given timed observation. 4. We also study the problem of attack detection in the context of DESs, assuming that a system may be subject to multiple types of attacks, each described by its own attack dictionary. Furthermore, we distinguish between constant attacks, which corrupt observations using only one of the attack dictionaries, and switching attacks, which may use different attack dictionaries at different steps. The problem we address is detecting whether a system has been attacked and, if so, which attack dictionaries have been used. To solve it in the framework of untimed DES, we construct a new structure that describes the observations generated by a system under attack. We show that the attack detection problem can be transformed into a classical state estimation/diagnosis problem for these new structures

Discrete Event Simulations

Considered by many authors as a technique for modelling stochastic, dynamic and discretely evolving systems, this technique has gained widespread acceptance among the practitioners who want to represent and improve complex systems. Since DES is a technique applied in incredibly different areas, this book reflects many different points of view about DES, thus, all authors describe how it is understood and applied within their context of work, providing an extensive understanding of what DES is. It can be said that the name of the book itself reflects the plurality that these points of view represent. The book embraces a number of topics covering theory, methods and applications to a wide range of sectors and problem areas that have been categorised into five groups. As well as the previously explained variety of points of view concerning DES, there is one additional thing to remark about this book: its richness when talking about actual data or actual data based analysis. When most academic areas are lacking application cases, roughly the half part of the chapters included in this book deal with actual problems or at least are based on actual data. Thus, the editor firmly believes that this book will be interesting for both beginners and practitioners in the area of DES

Management Of Plug-In Electric Vehicles And Renewable Energy Sources In Active Distribution Networks

Near 160 million customers in the U.S.A. are served via distribution networks (DNs). The increasing penetration level of renewable energy sources (RES) and plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), the implementation of smart distribution technologies such as advanced metering/monitoring infrastructure, and the adoption of smart appliances, have changed distribution networks from passive to active. The next-generation of DNs should be efficient and optimized system-wide, highly reliable and robust, and capable of effectively managing highly-penetrated PEVs, RES and other controllable loads. To meet new challenges, the next-generation DNs need active distribution management (ADM). In this thesis, we study the management of PEVs and RES in active DNs. First, we propose a novel discrete-event modeling method to model PEVs and other loads in distribution networks. In addition, a new optimization algorithm to integrate as many PEVs as possible in DNs without causing voltage issues, including the violation of voltage security ranges and voltage stability, is studied. To further explore the active management of PEVs in the DNs, we develop a universal demonstration platform, consisting of software packages and hardware remote terminal units. The demonstration platform is designed with the capabilities of measurement, monitoring, control, automation, and communications. Furthermore, we have studied the reactive power management in microgrids, a special platform to integrate distributed generations and energy storage in DNs. To solve possible voltage security issues in a microgrid with high penetration of single-phase induction machines under the condition of fault-induced islanding, a voltage-sensitivity-based reactive power management algorithm is proposed

Motion-Planning and Control of Autonomous Vehicles to Satisfy Linear Temporal Logic Specifications

Motion-planning is an essential component of autonomous aerial and terrestrial vehicles. The canonical Motion-planning problem, which is widely studied in the literature, is of planning point-to-point motion while avoiding obstacles. However, the desired degree of vehicular autonomy has steadily risen, and has consequently led to motion-planning problems where a vehicle is required to accomplish a high-level intelligent task, rather than simply move between two points. One way of specifying such intelligent tasks is via linear temporal logic (LTL) formulae. LTL is a formal logic system that includes temporal operators such as always, eventually, and until besides the usual logical operators. For autonomous vehicles, LTL formulae can concisely express tasks such as persistent surveillance, safety requirements, and temporal orders of visits to multiple locations. Recent control theoretic literature has discussed the generation of reference trajectories and/or the synthesis of feedback control laws to enable a vehicle to move in manners that satisfy LTL specifications. A crucial step in such synthesis is the generation of a so-called discrete abstraction of a vehicle kinematic/dynamic model. Typical techniques of generating a discrete abstraction require strong assumptions on controllability and/or linearity. This dissertation discusses fast motion-planning and control techniques to satisfy LTL specifications for vehicle models with nonholonomic kinematic constraints, which do not satisfy the aforesaid assumptions. The main contributions of this dissertation are as follows. First, we present a new technique for constructing discrete abstractions of a Dubins vehicle model (namely, a vehicle that moves forward at a constant speed with a minimum turning radius). This technique relies on the so-called method of lifted graphs and precomputed reachable set calculations. Using this technique, we provide an algorithm to generate vehicle reference trajectories satisfying LTL specifications without requiring complete controllability in the presence of workspace constraints, and without requiring linearity or linearization of the vehicle model. Second, we present a technique for centralized motion-planning for a team of vehicles to collaboratively satisfy a common LTL specification. This technique is also based on the method of lifted graphs. Third, we present an incremental version of the proposed motion-planning techniques, which has an “anytime property. This property means that a feasible solution is computed quickly, and the iterative updates are made to this solution with a guarantee of convergence to an optimal solution. This version is suited for real-time implementation, where a hard bound on the computation time is imposed. Finally, we present a randomized sampling-based technique for generating reference trajectories that satisfy given LTL specifications. This technique is an alternative to the aforesaid technique based on lifted graphs. We illustrate the proposed techniques using numerical simulation examples. We demonstrate the superiority of the proposed techniques in comparison to the existing literature in terms of computational time and memory requirements