A Uniform Treatment of Architectures in Decentralized Discrete-Event System

Solutions to decentralized discrete-event systems problems are characterized by the way local decisions are fused to yield a global decision. A fusion rule is colloquially called an architecture. This paper provides a uniform treatment of architectures in decentralized discrete-event systems. Current approaches neither provide a direct way to determine problem solvability conditions under one architecture, nor a way to compare existing architectures. Determining whether a new architecture is more general than an existing known architecture relies on producing examples ad hoc and on individual inspiration that puts the conditions for solvability in each architecture into some form that admits comparison. From these research efforts, a method based on morphisms between graphs has been extracted to yield a uniform approach to decentralized discrete-event system architectures and their attendant fusion rules. This treatment provides an easy and direct way to compare the fusion rules -- and hence to compare the strength or generality of the corresponding architectures