Efficient Symbolic Supervisory Synthesis and Guard Generation: Evaluating partitioning techniques for the state-space exploration

The supervisory control theory (SCT) is a model-based framework, which automatically synthesizes a supervisor that restricts a plant to be controlled based on specifications to be fulfilled. Two main problems, typically encountered in industrial applications, prevent SCT from having a major breakthrough. First, the supervisor which is synthesized automatically from the given plant and specification models might be incomprehensible to the users. To tackle this problem, an approach was recently presented to extract compact propositional formulae (guards) from the supervisor, represented symbolically by binary decision diagrams (BDD). These guards are then attached to the original models, which results in a modular and comprehensible representation of the supervisor. However, this approach, which computes the supervisor symbolically in the conjunctive way, might lead to another problem: the state-space explosion, because of the large number of intermediate BDD nodes during computation. To alleviate this problem, we introduce in this paper an alternative approach that is based on the disjunctive partitioning technique, including a set of selection heuristics. Then this approach is adapted to the guard generation procedure. Finally, the efficiency of the presented approach is demonstrated on a set of benchmark examples

Symbolic Supervisory Control of Resource Allocation Systems

<p>Supervisory control theory (SCT) is a formal model-based methodology for verification and synthesis of supervisors for discrete event systems (DES). The main goal is to guarantee that the closed-loop system fulfills given specifications. SCT has great promise to assist engineers with the generation of reliable control functions. This is, for instance, beneficial to manufacturing systems where both products and production equipment might change frequently.</p> <p>The industrial acceptance of SCT, however, has been limited for at least two reasons: (i) the analysis of DES involves an intrinsic difficulty known as the state-space explosion problem, which makes the explicit enumeration of enormous state-spaces for industrial systems intractable; (ii) the synthesized supervisor, represented as a deterministic finite automaton (FA) or an extended finite automaton (EFA), is not straightforward to implement in an industrial controller.</p> <p>In this thesis, to address the aforementioned issues, we study the modeling, synthesis and supervisor representation of DES using binary decision diagrams (BDDs), a compact data structure for representing DES models symbolically. We propose different kinds of BDD-based algorithms for exploring the symbolically represented state-spaces in an effort to improve the abilities of existing supervisor synthesis approaches to handle large-scale DES and represent the obtained supervisors appropriately.</p> <p>Following this spirit, we bring the efficiencies of BDD into a particular DES application domain -- deadlock avoidance for resource allocation systems (RAS) -- a problem that arises in many technological systems including flexible manufacturing systems and multi-threaded software. We propose a framework for the effective and computationally efficient development of the maximally permissive deadlock avoidance policy (DAP) for various RAS classes. Besides the employment of symbolic computation, special structural properties that are possessed by RAS are utilized by the symbolic algorithms to gain additional efficiencies in the computation of the sought DAP. Furthermore, to bridge the gap between the BDD-based representation of the target DAP and its actual industrial realization, we extend this work by introducing a procedure that generates a set of "guard" predicates to represent the resulting DAP.</p> <p>The work presented in this thesis has been implemented in the SCT tool Supremica. Computational benchmarks have manifested the superiority of the proposed algorithms with respect to the previously published results. Hence, the work holds a strong potential for providing robust, practical and efficient solutions to a broad range of supervisory control and deadlock avoidance problems that are experienced in the considered DES application domain.</p

Symbolic reachability computation using the disjunctive partitioning technique in Supervisory Control Theory

Supervisory Control Theory (SCT) is a model-based framework for automatically synthesizing a supervisor that minimally restricts the behavior of a plant such that a given specification is fulfilled. A problem, which prevents SCT from having a major breakthrough industrially, is that the supervisory synthesis often suffers from the state-space explosion problem. To alleviate this problem, a well-known strategy is to represent and explore the state-space symbolically by using Binary Decision Diagrams. Based on this principle, an efficient symbolic state-space traversal approach, depending on the disjunctive partitioning technique, is presented and the correctness of it is proved. Finally, the efficiency of the presented approach is demonstrated on a set of benchmark examples

Technology assessment of advanced automation for space missions

Six general classes of technology requirements derived during the mission definition phase of the study were identified as having maximum importance and urgency, including autonomous world model based information systems, learning and hypothesis formation, natural language and other man-machine communication, space manufacturing, teleoperators and robot systems, and computer science and technology

Model Based Teleoperation to Eliminate Feedback Delay NSF Grant BCS89-01352 Second Report

We are conducting research in the area of teleoperation with feedback delay. Delay occurs with earth-based teleoperation in space and with surface-based teleoperation with untethered submersibles when acoustic communication links are involved. The delay in obtaining position and force feedback from remote slave arms makes teleoperation extremely difficult leading to very low productivity. We have combined computer graphics with manipulator programming to provide a solution to the problem. A teleoperator master arm is interfaced to a graphics based simulator of the remote environment. The system is then coupled with a robot manipulator at the remote, delayed site. The operator\u27s actions are monitored to provide both kinesthetic and visual feedback and to generate symbolic motion commands to the remote slave. The slave robot then executes these symbolic commands delayed in time. While much of a task proceeds error free, when an error does occur, the slave system transmits data back to the master environment which is then reset to the error state from which the operator continues the task

Symbolic Supervisory Control of Timed Discrete Event Systems

With the increasing complexity of computer systems, it is crucial to have efficient design of correct and well-functioning hardware and software systems. To this end, it is often desired to control the behavior of systems to possess some desired properties. A specific class of systems is called discrete event systems (DES). DES deal with `discrete' quantities, e.g., ``number of robots in a manufacturing cell'', and their processes are driven by instantaneous `events', e.g., ``start of a machine''. In this thesis, the focus is on DES and an extension of such systems, which also considers the time points at which the events may occur, called \emph{timed DES (TDES)}. Real-time applications such as communication networks, manufacturing facilities, or the execution of a computer program, can be considered into TDES. Having a DES or TDES, with some given specifications, by utilizing a well-known mathematical framework, called supervisory control theory (SCT), it is possible to automatically generate a supervisor that restricts the system's behavior towards the specifications, only when it is necessary. Applying the SCT to large and complex systems, typically follows with some issues, concerning computational complexity and modeling aspects, which is tackled in this thesis. We model DES by extended finite automata (EFAs), state transition models that contain discrete-valued variables. TDES are modeled by an augmentation of EFAs, called timed EFAs (TEFAs), which contain a set of discrete-valued clocks. Based on EFAs or TEFAs, the supervisor can be symbolically computed, using binary decision diagrams (BDDs), data structures that could, in many cases, lead to smaller representation of the state space. For complex systems, the computed supervisor may consist of many states, causing representation and implementation difficulties. To tackle this, based on the states of the supervisor, we symbolically compute logical constraints that will be attached to the original models to restrict the system's behavior. Consequently, we present a framework, where given a set of EFAs or TEFAs, the supervisor is computed using BDDs, and represented in a modular manner based on the computed logical constraints. The framework has been developed, implemented, and applied to industrial case studies

Lower Bound for the Duration of Event Sequences of Given Length in Timed Discrete Event Systems

The Supervisory Control Theory (SCT) of Discrete Event Systems (DES) provides a framework for synthesizing a DES supervisor to ensure a DES plant satisfies its design specification. In SCT, supervisor synthesis is performed offline before the functioning of the plant. Generally, the size of the plant and the specifications models are large resulting in supervisors that need huge computer memory for storage -- usually unavailable in embedded systems. A solution to this problem proposed in the literature is Limited Lookahead Policy (LLP). In LLP, the supervisory control commands are calculated online during the plant operation. After the occurrence of each event, the next control command is calculated based on the plant behaviour over a limited number of events into the future. In practice such frequent LLP computation would not be feasible as multiple events can occur consecutively over a short duration, not leaving enough time for LLP computation between them. To tackle this issue, a method is proposed called LLP with Buffering where the supervisory control commands are calculated online and buffered in advance for a predefined window of events in future. Determining the correct size of the buffer is crucial in order to achieve a trade-off between the on-board memory requirement and the computational resources and also ensuring that new supervisor commands are computed before the buffer runs out empty. The size of the buffer primarily depends on (1) the execution time of the code for supervisor calculation and (2) the (fastest) rate of event generation in the plant. This thesis focuses on the second factor. Previously, the minimum execution duration of event sequences has been calculated experimentally. The experimental approach is not exhaustive and thus results in an overestimate in the value of the minimum execution duration of event sequences. In this thesis, a model-based approach to the computation of the minimum duration is proposed which begins by transforming the untimed model of the plant under supervision into a timed automaton (TA) by incorporating timing information of the events. Next, an exhaustive symbolic matrix-based search algorithm is proposed where all the event sequences from every mode of the TA model are traversed to determine the minimum execution duration of the event sequences. The proposed method avoids the reachability analysis of TA needed to determine the reachable clock regions for each mode. The number of these regions is exponential in the number of events. Instead, the method uses reachability on the graph of the untimed model (polynomial in the number of events). This algorithm runs faster but provides an underestimate for the minimum execution duration of event sequences. Next, a two-degree-of-freedom solar tracker system is used as a plant to analyse the timing behaviour of the events and the implementation of LLP with buffering. In this study, the model-based and experimental methods have been used together to choose a suitable buffer size. The resulting LLP supervisor with buffering has been successfully implemented

Teleprogramming: Remote Site Research Issues: (Dissertation Proposal)

This document proposes the development of the remote site workcell for teleoperation with significant communication delays (on the order of one to 20 seconds). In these situations, direct teleoperation becomes difficult to impossible due to the delays in visual and force feedback. Teleprogramming has been developed in order to overcome this problem. In teleprogramming, the human operator interacts in real time with a graphical model of the remote site, which provides for real time visual and force feedback. The master arm and the manipulator/model interactions, given predefined criteria of what types of motions are to be expected. These commands are then sent via a communication link, which may delay the signals, to the remote site. Based upon a remote world model, predefined and possibly refined as more information is obtained, the slave carries out commanded operations in the remote world and decides whether each step has been executed correctly. The remote site receives commands sent via the delayed communication link. These commands must be parsed and translated into the local robot control language, which includes insertion of dynamic parameters that are not generated by the master system. The commands are then executed by the hybrid position/force controller, and the resulting motions monitored for errors. This proposal addresses the following remote site issues: low level manipulator control using an instrumented compliant wrist for sensory feedback, higher level command execution implementing dynamic parameters, and remote manipulator tool usage and control