Supervisor synthesis in model-based automotive systems engineering

It is recognized by various engineering disciplines that models support and speed up the development of systems consisting of numerous closely related computational and physical elements, since they enable extensive and early functional and performance analysis of the designs and allow for control code generation. Model-based engineering is gradually becoming an accepted best practice in several industrial application domains, such as mobile robotics or (autonomous) automotive systems. As reported in literature, more recently, engineering processes based on formal models are increasingly often being introduced in industrial settings because they proved not only to be able to cope with complexity and to reduce time-to-market and development costs, but also to substantially reduce testing effort and improve maintainability. The purpose of this paper is to outline the application of supervisory control synthesis to the design of discrete-event controllers in relation to physical elements, show how it can be integrated in an engineering process and how it can improve the design process of dependable discrete-event controllers. To facilitate the discussion, an automotive industrial case study is used.