Hierarchical Supervisory Control Based on Discrete Event Systems With Flexible Marking

This paper proposes a two-level hierarchical supervisory control scheme for a discrete event system (DES), where the low-level is represented in the standard Ramadge–Wonham framework and the high level is represented by a DES with flexible marking (DESFM). As shown, the flexibility in the definition of marking provided by a DESFM simplifies the modeling of the high-level marking behavior. This approach, when compared with other approaches, requires less events and states to model the high-level, while guaranteeing hierarchical consistency.