Stochastic automata and the problems of reliability in sequential machines

The reliability of sequential machines is an important factor in their design and implementation. In this thesis, stochastic sequential machine models are employed to investigate some of the problems concerning the reliability of sequential machines. Two different methods are used to find the reliability required of individual elements. The first method is based on a property of stochastic matrices with a principal entry in every row, and the second one uses the notion of entropy for stochastic automata. These two approaches are then compared and the first one is found to be advantageous. A survey of the literature on stochastic automata and a method for increasing the reliability of sequential machines by simple redundancy at the element level are also included