Decentralized Optimal Control of Distributed Interdependent Automata With Priority Structure

For distributed discrete-event systems (DESs), which are specified by a set of coupled automata, the centralized synthesis for a composed plant model is often undesired due to a high computational effort and the need to subsequently split the result into local controllers. This paper proposes modeling and synthesis procedures to obtain optimal decentralized controllers in state-feedback form for distributed DES. In particular, this paper addresses the DES with priority structures, in which subsystems with high priorities are supplied with the output of subsystems with lower priority. If the subsystem dependencies have linear or treelike structures, the synthesis of the subsystem controllers can be accomplished separately. Any local controller is computed by algebraic computations, it communicates with controllers of adjacent subsystems, and it aims at transferring the corresponding subsystem into goal states with a minimal sum of transfer costs. As is shown for an example, the computational effort can be significantly reduced compared with the synthesis of centralized controllers following the composition of all subsystem models.