Do What You Know: Coupling Knowledge with Action in Discrete-Event Systems
This work addresses control problems in discrete-event systems for researchers and practitioners, but it appears incremental as it combines existing frameworks.
The paper tackles the problem of decentralized discrete-event systems with non-binary control by presenting an epistemic model that couples knowledge with action, resulting in necessary and sufficient conditions for problem solvability that directly link supervisors' actions to knowledge in a formalism mimicking natural language.
An epistemic model for decentralized discrete-event systems with non-binary control is presented. This framework combines existing work on conditional control decisions with existing work on formal reasoning about knowledge in discrete-event systems. The novelty in the model presented is that the necessary and sufficient conditions for problem solvability encapsulate the actions that supervisors must take. This direct coupling between knowledge and action -- in a formalism that mimics natural language -- makes it easier, when the problem conditions fail, to determine how the problem requirements should be revised.