Supervisory Control and Regulation of Discrete Dynamical Systems

我们建议的研究是工程和应用数学的一个分支，称为自动控制或**有时称为控制论，即反馈系统的科学和技术。这样的系统被设计成将一些关键**变量(S)保持在可接受的范围内。例如，飞机的自动飞行员会纠正风的干扰，否则可能会使飞机偏离航线，可能会造成灾难性的后果。我们特别感兴趣的是系统，比如交通系统，它必须对瞬时**事件做出反应，比如车辆到达十字路口；制造系统，它必须对新的部件订单或机器故障做出反应。**另一个例子是汽车中的按钮系统，尽管是由驾车者“随机”启动的，但它的设计应该永远不会陷入**像“挂断”或堵塞这样的逻辑错误。*这种离散事件系统及其控制要求在控制理论和计算机科学的接口上采用新的专门技术。一个主要的挑战**是这些系统可能(在逻辑上)非常大和复杂。例如，汽车按钮系统可能潜在地进入数百万个不同的内部**状态或逻辑配置。这可能会导致对控制工程设计所需的计算能力的几乎压倒一切的要求。*我们正在开发根据有效的体系结构原则组织这种系统的正式方法(即系统的和数学上严格的)。**这样的系统体系结构可以是分层的，即将组件组组织成逻辑“层”，类似于企业或政府组织的管理层**。在那里，每个级别接受上级的命令，并向下一级发出控制命令，但带有**反馈链接，通过这些链接，给定的级别可以向上一级报告有价值的性能数据。或者，人们可以将主要系统组件**分布式地组织成半自主的智能代理，这些智能代理通过网络相互通信。事实上，这种垂直和**水平体系结构的许多变体和组合在实践中都被使用。任何系统架构的目标都是使复杂的系统既透明(即人类**可理解)又可计算(即服从于保证系统将按照规范运行的控制设计)。我们的最终目标**是发展建筑规律来指导最适合于给定控制任务的体系结构的选择。*平行的研究目标是控制理论的内模原理(IMP)的扩展，根据该原理，一个“好的”控制器(在一定技术意义上)**必须配备关于其环境动态结构的特定智能。特别令人感兴趣的是将IMP合并到**如上所述的离散事件系统的控制架构中。

Our proposed research lies in the branch of engineering and applied mathematics called automatic control or**sometimes cybernetics, namely the science and technology of feedback systems. Such systems are designed to maintain some critical **variable(s) within an acceptable range. For instance, an aircraft's automatic pilot corrects for wind disturbances which might otherwise**drive the plane off course, perhaps disastrously. Of specific interest to us are systems, such as traffic systems, which must respond to instantaneous**events, like the arrival at an intersection of a vehicle; and manufacturing systems, which must respond to a new part order or a machine breakdown.**Another example is the pushbutton system in an automobile which, though "randomly" activated by the motorist, should be designed never to fall into** a logical error like "hangup" or blocking.** **Such discrete-event systems and their control call for new and specialized techniques at the interface of control theory and computer science. A major challenge** is that these systems can be (logically) very large and complex. For instance, the automobile pushbutton system may potentially enter many millions of different internal** states or logical configurations. This may lead to almost overwhelming requirements on the computing power needed for control engineering design.** **We are developing formal (i.e. systematic and mathematically rigorous) methods of organizing such systems according to effective architectural principles.**Such a system architecture could be hierarchical, namely an organization of component groups into logical "layers", analogous to the levels of management **in a business or governmental organization. There each level takes orders from the one above, and issues control commands to the one below, but with **feedback links by which a given level can report valuable performance data to the level above. Alternatively one might organize the main system components** distributively into semi-autonomous smart agents that intercommunicate by networking. In fact many variations and combinations of such vertical and **horizontal architectures are employed in practice. The objective of any system architecture is to render a complex system both transparent (i.e. humanly**intelligible) and computable (i.e. amenable to control design which guarantees that the system will behave in accordance with specification). Our ultimate goal **is to develop laws of architecture to guide the choice of architecture best suited to a given control task.** **A parallel research goal is extension of the internal model principle (IMP) of control theory, according to which a "good" controller (in a certain technical sense) **must be equipped with specific intelligence concerning the dynamical structure of its environment. Of especial interest will be the incorporation of the IMP in**the control architectures of discrete-event systems as outlined above.** **