A framework for modeling communication among decentralized supervisors for discrete-event systems

Following the author's work on extended finite-state machines (EFSMs), we propose a framework to study communication among decentralized supervisors for a (distributed) discrete-event system (DES). Equipped with agent-wise labeling maps (ALMs), this framework serves to explore the information structure of the system naturally while enjoying an abstract viewpoint to rigorously express the desired properties. After its development in the centralized case, we extend the framework to the case of decentralized supervisors and prove the existence and efficient computation of ALMs. Examples illustrate the applicability of the approach.