Computationally efficient supervisor design: abstraction and modularity

A flexible modular and hierarchical structure is presented to reduce computational effort in designing optimal nonblocking supervisors for discrete-event systems (DES). The structure organizes the system into modular subsystems that embody internal interacting dependencies. Verification and coordination among modular subsystems are achieved through their model abstractions. Sufficient conditions are presented to guarantee that these coordinators and modular supervisors result in optimal nonblocking control. A medium-sized example demonstrates the computational advantage of our approach