Interpreted Higher-Dimensional Automata for Concurrent Discrete-Event Control

2026-03-23

AI Summary

This study addresses the challenges of specification ambiguity and inconsistency in controller synthesis for concurrent discrete-event systems. It introduces high-dimensional automata (HDA) into practical concurrency control scenarios for the first time and proposes an interpretive Petri net (IPN)-based method for automatic generation of closed-loop controllers. By formally analyzing IPNs through HDA, the approach not only effectively uncovers and detects implicit ambiguities or conflicts within specifications but also directly synthesizes executable closed-loop controllers. The generated controllers were successfully deployed in a simulated industrial environment, demonstrating the method’s feasibility, effectiveness, and its capability to ensure specification consistency.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Behavior Learning & Control
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Mixed Discrete/Continuous Planning
• Multiagent Systems: Distributed Problem Solving

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Experiences and lessons learnt from Web-based algorithms and system deployments
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Incentives in network design for Web infrastructures and ecosystems

Abstract

In recent years the theory of Higher Dimensional Automata (HDA) has seen significant advances from a theoretical point of view, reflecting standard automata theory. There have also been first attempts to use the mathematical framework provided by HDAs to known problems, in particular Petri Net analysis. However real-world applications are still lacking and issues from real-world system, as concurrency, is still opened in the context of controller generation. In this work we show how the framework of HDAs can be adapted to help transforming controllers given as interpreted Petri nets (IPN) into an actual closed loop controller and how the HDA helps in identifying ambiguous or even contradictory specifications that remain hidden in the IPN. We demonstrate the feasibility by connecting the obtain controller to a virtual environment for closed loop control, exemplified by an industrial example.

Problem

• Higher Dimensional Automata
• concurrent discrete-event control
• interpreted Petri nets
• controller generation
• specification ambiguity

Innovation

• Higher Dimensional Automata
• Interpreted Petri Nets
• Concurrent Discrete-Event Control
• Controller Synthesis
• Specification Ambiguity Detection