Distributed on-line analysis of discrete event systems: a survey of some recent results

On-line supervisory control of large discrete event systems is difficult due to the exponentially growing size of the state space to be enumerated in a naive analysis. This paper surveys several attempts to reduce the computational complexity, as investigated in some recent papers by the SYSTeMS group of Ghent University. Compositionality and distributed analysis, combined with forward and backward generation of unfoldings of the set of feasible trajectories are proposed here as tools for resolving this problem.