IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS SOCIETY TECHNICAL COMMITTEE
ON DISCRETE EVENT SYSTEMS

    Ryan J. Leduc
    Chair, IEEE CSS Technical Committee on DES
    Dept. of Computing and Software
    McMaster University
    1280 Main Street West
    Hamilton, Ontario
    Canada L8S 4K1

    Phone: (905) 525-9140 Ext. 27962
    Fax: (905) 524-0340
    e-mail: leduc@mcmaster.ca
    WWW: http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/~leduc/

DESTC Web Page: http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/destc/

To subscribe/unsubscribe to the newsletter, please go here.

To submit news items and articles to this newsletter, go here.

It is the responsibility of the contributor to ensure that they have the necessary permissions/clearance required for the transmittal of their news item.

Contents:

1. Editorial

2. Announcements
 2.1 DES ORRD Membership Uptake

3. Conferences
 3.1 7th International Heinz Nixdorf Symposium: Self-Optimizing
     Mechatronic, Paderborn, Germany, February 20 - 21, 2008
 3.2 The 10th IASTED International Conference on Control and
     Applications, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, May 26 - 28, 2008
 3.3 Petri Nets 2008, Xi'an, China, June 23 - 27, 2008
 3.4 Control 2008, Manchester, United Kingdom, September 2 - 4, 2008
 3.5 2007 CACS International Automatic Control Conference, Taichung,
     Taiwan, November 9 - 11, 2007
 3.6 IFAC World Congress 2008, Seoul, Korea, July 6 - 11, 2008

4. Journals
 4.1 Selections from IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology,
     Volume: 15, Issue: 4, July 2007
 4.2 Selections from IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Part
     C:, Volume: 37, Issue: 4, July 2007
 4.3 Selections from IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Volume:
     33, Issue: 8, August 2007
 4.4 Selections from IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and
     Engineering, Volume: 4, Issue: 3, July 2007
 4.5 Selections from IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Part
     B, Volume: 37, Issue: 4, August 2007

Welcome to the newsletter of the IEEE Control Systems Technical Committee on Discrete Event Systems!

See http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/destc/ for information on the DESTC.

Personal note from the editor:

Welcome to the July 2007 newsletter.  This appears to be an excellent
period for DES related journal publications as a large number have
showed up in journals in this edition.

I hope all of the authors will take the time to submit the info for
their papers to the DES ORRD (http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/~desorrd/) so
that it will be searchable for future reference.

There were also several interesting DES related papers at the 2007
American  Control Conference that I just attended. Hopefully all
authors who had papers there will also submit their info to the DES
ORRD as well, so that those who were not able to attend will know about
your results.

Ryan

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc _aT_ mcmaster _dOt_ ca>

DES ORRD MEMBERSHIP UPTAKE

In the June 2007 edition of the DESTC newsletter, we announced the
launch of a new type of website to create a searchable database of DES
related resources (papers, reports, theses, etc). Please refer to the
June edition for details.

Since a full membership was sent out to all readers of the newsletter,
we have had an uptake of about 60 new users, and still growing.

If you haven't clicked on the subscription link of the invitation you
received, I urge you to do so right away.  After a few quick steps,
your account will be created and you will start receiving e-mail 
announcements (you can define your own search criteria, or even
disable the announcements) of new submissions. By subscribing right
away, you won't miss any more of them.

The first new submission after the website was launched was June 17,
2007. If you go to the search page and set the "submitted date - from" to:
2007-06-17, you will be able to easily find what you have missed.

For those readers who had DES related papers at the recent 2007
American Control Conference, please submit the info for your papers to
the DES ORRD website right away so that those who did not attend will
be aware of your papers.

Ryan Leduc
DESTC Chair

Contributed by: Benjamin Kloepper <kloepper@hni.upb.de>

7TH INTERNATIONAL HEINZ NIXDORF SYMPOSIUM: SELF-OPTIMIZING MECHATRONIC
Paderborn, Germany
February 20 - 21, 2008

Call for Papers:
7th International Heinz Nixdorf Symposium: Self-Optimizing Mechatronic
Systems: Design the Future
http://www.hni.upb.de/en/symposium2008 
Mechatronics and Self-optimization
The integration of mechanical engineering and information technology
results in extensive potentials. This is expressed by the term
"mechatronics". This term refers to the symbiotic cooperation of
mechanics, electronics, control engineering and software technology, 
in order to improve the behavior of a technical system. Future
mechatronical systems encompass subsystems with inherent partial
intelligence due to integrated micro processors. The behavior of the
complete system will be characterized by communication and cooperation
of intelligent subsystems. From the information technology point of
view it is a distributed system of cooperating agents. This establishes
fascinating possibilities for the design of mechatronical products of
tomorrow. The term Self-optimization characterizes this perspective: 
Self-optimization of a technical system is the endogenous adaption of
objectives as reaction to changing influences and the resulting
autonomous adjustment of parameters or structure and consequently of
the system's behavior. Thus Self-optimization is substantially beyond
the well-known control and adaptation strategies; Self-optimization
enables systems to act with inherent "intelligence", to react
independently and flexibly to changing operation conditions.

Challenges on the way to tomorrow's technical systems
While there are many application examples of mechatronics, the
potential of Self-optimization in  mechanical engineering appears only
in rough outlines. It obviously needs fantasy to define machines with
inherent partial intelligence. Substantial preconditions for the
accomplishment of this challenge are the scientific exploration and an
adequate presentation for engineering issues of the paradigm of 
Self-optimization. The second challenge is the development of a 
methodology to design self-optimizing mechanical systems. As
outstanding characteristic designers cannot anticipate


The topics of interest for the 7th International Heinz Nixdorf
Symposium include:
* Adaptive Control and Self-optimization
* "Intelligent Movement" of Multi-Body Systems
* Multi-Objective Optimization and Optimization under Consideration of 
  Uncertainty
* Current Developments in Sensor and Actuators
* New Technologies in Domain Spanning Desing
* Intelligent Agents in Engineering Applications
* Safety and Dependability
* Prevention of Product Piracy

The papers should address the area of mechanical engineering and
related areas like automotive, aircraft construction, medical
engineering, robotics, etc.
Paper Submission:


Details about the Full Paper submission will be available on
http://www.hni.upb.de/en/symposium2008 . 
*Draft papers should be submitted until October 1, 2007
*Authors will receive the acceptance notification on November 2, 2007
*Final Papers should be sent until December 10, 2007

Organizers
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jurgen Gausemeier
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Franz-J. Rammig
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Wilhelm Schafer

Program Committee
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. h.c. A. Albers, Universität Karlsruhe
Prof. Dr.-Ing. R. Anderl, TU Darmstadt
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Prof. h.c. T. Bertram, Universität Dortmund
Dr.-Ing. T. Bornchen, Alfons Haar Maschinenbau GmbH
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. M. Broy, TU Muenchen
Prof. Dr. ir. H. v. Brussel, Katholische Universität Leuven
Prof. Dr.-Ing. R. Dudziak, FH Bochum
Prof. Dr.-Ing. K. Feldmann, Universitat Erlangen
Dr.-Ing. M. Hahn, iXtronics GmbH
Prof. K. Kim, PhD, University of California at Irvine
Prof. Dr. H. Kopetz, TU Wien
Prof. Dr. I. H. Kruger,
University of California at San Diego
Dr.-Ing. R. Lachmayer
Prof. Dr.-Ing. U. Lindemann, TU Muenchen
Dipl.-Ing. E. Mertens, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe
PD Dr.-Ing. S. Mohringer, Mohringer Anlagenbau GmbH
Prof. Dr. C. Pereira, Universitat Porto Alegre, Brasilien
Prof. Dr.-Ing. U. Ruckert, Universitat Paderborn
Prof. Dr. R. Scheidl, Universitat Linz
Dr. H.-P. Schoner, DaimlerChrysler AG
Dr.-Ing. J. Schuller, Audi AG
Prof. Dr. T. Tamai, University of Tokyo, Japan
Prof. M. Tomizuka, PhD,
University of California at Berkeley
Prof. Dr.-Ing. E. G. Welp, Ruhr-Universitat Bochum
Prof. W. Wolf, PhD, Princeton University

Contact 
Dipl.-Inf.Sebastian Pook
Heinz Nixdorf Institut, University of Paderborn
E-Mail: Sebastian.Pook@hni.upb.de
Phone: +49 (0) 5251/60 62 61
Fax : +49 (0)5251/60 62 68

Dipl.-Wirt.Inf. Benjamin Kloepper
Heinz Nixdorf Institut, University of Paderborn
E-Mail: kloepper@hni.upb.de
Phone: +49 (0) 5251/60 62 61
Fax : +49 (0)5251/60 62 68

web site: click here

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc _aT_ mcmaster _dOt_ ca>

THE 10TH IASTED INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CONTROL AND APPLICATIONS
Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
May 26 - 28, 2008

CALL FOR PAPERS

Sponsor:

The International Association of Science and Technology for Development
(IASTED)

Conference Chair:

Dr. Camille Alain Rabbath - Defence Research & Development Canada,
Canada

Purpose:

The 10th IASTED International Conference on Control and Applications
(CA 2008) will be a major forum for international researchers and
practitioners interested in all areas of control and applications. It
will be an opportunity to present and observe the latest research,
results, and ideas in these areas. All papers submitted to this
conference will be double blind evaluated by at least two reviewers.
Acceptance will be based primarily on originality and contribution.

CA 2008 will be held in conjunction with the IASTED International
Conferences on:

    * Modelling and Simulation (MS 2008)
    * Wireless and Optical Communications (WOC 2008)

Scope

The topics to be covered include, but are not limited to:

    * Control Theory
    * Stability
    * Linear Control
    * Non-Linear Control
    * Optimization
    * Identification and Estimation
    * Intelligent Control
    * Adaptive Control
    * Predictive Control
    * Fuzzy Control
    * Control using Neural Networks
    * Genetic Algorithms
    * Process Control
    * Re-Configurable Control Systems
    * Stochastic Control
    * Robust Control
    * Variable Structure Control
    * Virtual Reality in Control
    * Robotics
    * Real Time Systems
    * Fault Detection
    * Modelling and Simulation
    * Control Education
    * Discrete Events and Hybrid Systems
    * Mechatronics
    * Bio-Engineering
    * Environmental Systems
    * Vehicles and Transportation Systems
    * Power Systems Applications
    * Control of Distributed Parameter Systems

Submission

Initial Papers
Submit your paper via our website at:
www.iasted.org/conferences/submit-622.html.

All submissions should be in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format. The IASTED
Secretariat must receive your paper by January 15, 2008. Receipt of
paper submission will be confirmed by email.

Complete the online initial paper submission form designating an author
who will attend the conference and provide four key words to indicate
the subject area of your paper. At least one of the key words must be
taken from the list of topics provided under Scope. Initial paper
submissions should be approximately six pages. Formatting instructions
are available at: www.iasted.org/formatting-initial.htm.

All papers submitted to this conference will be double blind reviewed
by at least two reviewers. Acceptance will be based primarily on
originality and contribution.

All papers submitted to IASTED conferences must be previously
unpublished and may not be considered for publication elsewhere at any
time during IASTED's review period. Authors are limited to a maximum of
three paper submissions. Authors are responsible for having their
papers checked for style and grammar prior to submission to IASTED.
Papers may be rejected if the language is not satisfactory.

Notification of acceptance will be sent via email by February 15, 2008.
Final manuscripts are due by April 1, 2008 . Registration and final
payment are due by April 8, 2008. Late registration fees or paper
submissions will result in the papers being excluded from the
conference proceedings. 

Important Deadlines
Submissions due 		January 15, 2008
Notification of acceptance	February 15, 2008
Final manuscripts due		April 1, 2008
Registration deadline		April 8, 2008

web site: click here

Contributed by: Mariagrazia Dotoli <dotoli@deemail.poliba.it>

PETRI NETS 2008
Xi'an, China
June 23 - 27, 2008

The 29th annual international Petri Net conference and tutorials will 
be organised by the Institute of Computing Theory and Technology 
(ICTT), the Office for International Cooperation and Exchange at the 
Xidian University, Xi'an, China, and Petri Net Technical Committee, 
China. Papers presenting original contributions in any area of 
application and theory of Petri nets are sought. The language of the 
conference is English. 

Topics
System design and verification using nets, 
Analysis and synthesis, structure and behaviour of nets, 
Relationships between net theory and other approaches, 
Causality/partial order theory of concurrency, 
Net-based semantical, logical and algebraic calculi, 
Symbolic net representation (graphical or textual), 
Computer tools for nets, 
Experience with using nets, case studies, 
Educational issues related to nets, 
Higher-level net models, 
Timed and stochastic nets, 
Standardisation of nets,
Applications of nets to different kinds of 
systems and application fields, e.g.: flexible manufacturing systems, 
real-time systems, embedded systems, defence systems, biological 
systems, health and medical systems, environmental systems, hardware 
structures, telecommunications, railway networks, office automation, 
workflows, supervisory control, protocols and networks, Internet, e-
commerce and trading, programming languages, performance evaluation, 
operations research.  

The conference takes place under the auspices of EATCS and GI 
SIG "Petri Nets and Related System Models". 

Paper Submissions
Three kinds of papers can be submitted: 
Theory papers (max 20 pages). 
Application papers (max 20 pages). A typical application paper is a 
paper that describes one or more projects in which Petri net models 
and tools have been used in practice. An application paper may also 
describe a methodology, or other developments that demonstrate the 
applicability of Petri nets to industrial systems. 
Tool papers (max 10 pages). A typical tool paper is a paper which has 
its focus on the description of a computer tool for Petri Nets (not 
an application of the tool or the theory behind the tool). 

Submissions for papers must: 
- Contain original contributions that have not been published or 
submitted to other conferences/journals in parallel with this 
conference. 
- Clearly state the problem being addressed, the goal of the work, the 
results achieved, and the relation to other work. 
- Be in the Springer LNCS-format: 
http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html. 
Have a length that does not exceed 20 pages (10 pages for tool 
papers). 
- Be in English and in a form that can be immediately included in the 
proceedings without major revision. 
- Be sent electronically (as a PostScript or PDF file) using the 
website http://sttt.cs.uni-dortmund.de/atpn08/servlet/Conference no 
later than January 5, 2008. 

The title page must: 
- Contain a short abstract and a classification of the topics covered, 
preferably using the list of topics above. 
- Clearly indicate whether the paper is submitted as a theory paper, an

application paper, or a tool paper. 
- Submissions received too late and submissions sent by fax or ordinary

mail will be immediately rejected. The same will happen with papers 
which are not in English or exceed the page limit. Authors will be 
notified of acceptance/rejection by March 1, 2008. 

The proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag in Lecture Notes 
in Computer Science. The final camera-ready version of accepted 
papers must be received by the PC chairs no later than April 1, 2008. 
The page limit is 20 pages (10 pages for tool papers). 

Additional information about the conference will be published via 
http://ictt.xidian.edu.cn/atpn-acsd2008
http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/TGI/PetriNets/meetings/pn2008/

Contact e-mail: atpn2008@xidian.edu.cn 

Important Dates: 
Submission of Papers: January 5, 2008 
Notification: March 1, 2008 
Final Version Due: April 1, 2008 
Tutorials & Workshops:	June 23-24, 2008 
Conference: June 25-27, 2008 

The deadline for submission of papers is STRICT.
However, if you submit the title page by Jan. 5
it is sufficient to submit the full paper by Jan. 10.

web site: click here

Contributed by: Mariagrazia Dotoli <dotoli@deemail.poliba.it>

CONTROL 2008
Manchester, United Kingdom
September 2 - 4, 2008

The UKACC International Conference on Control 2008 will be held in 
Manchester, United Kingdom from September 2nd to 4th, 2008. The 
Conference is jointly hosted by The University of Manchester and 
Salford University. Original,  previously  unpublished works  within  
the  scope  of	Control2008 are kindly invited for submissions.


IMPORTANT DATES

Invited Session Proposal		 (January 31, 2008),   
Paper Submission			 (February 15, 2008),  
Paper Acceptance Notification		 (April 25, 2008),  
Final Submission			 (May 30, 2008),  
Pre-Conference Workshop 		 (August 31 - Sept. 1, 2008).


SUBMISSION POLICY

All papers submitted must be in the form of regular papers written in 
English (standard 2 column IFAC conference format) and limited to six 
pages. A short list of 3-5 keywords should be included. Short 
manuscripts less than six pages will not be considered. All 
submissions must be done electronically through the website: 
http://www.control2008.org 


CALL FOR INVITED SESSIONS

Proposals for invited sessions are encouraged. Each invited session 
consists of up to six papers dealing with issues relating to a 
specific theme. The proposals should contain a summary statement 
describing the relevance and importance of the session, accompanied 
by the title, authors and abstract of each invited paper. Papers for 
such invited sessions should then be submitted separately as 
contributed papers and will be reviewed individually. Individual 
papers may be removed from a proposed session and replaced by 
appropriate contributed papers. In case an entire proposed session is 
rejected, selected papers may be accepted as contributed ones. You 
are welcome to speak to anyone on the organising committee to discuss 
potential invited sessions.

 
QUERIES

If you have any queries, please contact the conference secretary on 
secretariat@control2008.org  

 
CONFERENCE SCOPE

Contributions are welcome in both theoretical developments and 
practical implementations in all areas involving systems and control. 
Such topics include, but are not limited to:

    * Control Theory
    * Control Systems Analysis
    * Linear Control and Non-linear Control
    * Optimization
    * Identification, Filtering and Estimation
    * Intelligent Control
    * Adaptive Control
    * Predictive Control
    * Fuzzy Control
    * Control using Neural Networks
    * Genetic Algorithms
    * Process Control
    * Re-configurable Control Systems
    * Stochastic Control
    * Robust Control
    * Variable Structure Control
    * Virtual Reality in Control
    * Robotics
    * Real-Time Control Systems
    * Fault Detection, Diagnosis and Fault Tolerant Control
    * Modelling and Simulation
    * Control Education
    * Discrete Events and Hybrid Systems
    * Mechatronics
    * Bio-engineering
    * Environmental Systems
    * Vehicles and Transportation Systems
    * Power Systems Applications
    * Control of Distributed Parameter Systems
    * Control Applications

web site: click here

Contributed by: Mariagrazia Dotoli <dotoli@deemail.poliba.it>

2007 CACS INTERNATIONAL AUTOMATIC CONTROL CONFERENCE
Taichung, Taiwan
November 9 - 11, 2007

The 2007 CACS International Automatic Control Conference is an
international conference sponsored by Chinese Automatic Control
Society, presenting more than 500 papers in a two-day event. This
conference offers a great opportunity for scientists, engineers, and
practitioners (national or international) to present the latest 
research, results, ideas, developments, and applications, as well as 
to facilitate interactions between scholars and practitioners. We 
encourage the submission of papers with new research results in all 
aspects of control.

To broaden the scope and promoteinternational participation, special
sessions will also be incorporated into the 2007 CACS IACC program.

Important Dates:
August 1, 2007. Proposals and extended abstracts of organized sessions
August 1, 2007. Submission of contributed papers
August 1, 2007. Student and hands-on paper contests
September 1, 2007. Notification of acceptance
October 1, 2007. Final papers due

Submission Policies:
Papers submitted should be written in English. All submissions must be
made electronically in PDF format via the 2007 CACS IACC conference
website at http://cacs2007.nchu.edu.tw. The official language of the
conference is English.

Contributed Papers:
Submit full paper manuscripts of no more than 6 pages in total length.
Download paper template.

Invited Sessions:
2007 CACS IACC welcomes proposals for invited sessions within
conference scope. Please put the proposal and the extended abstracts
of all constituent papers in ONE electronic file when submitting.
Please see Guidelines for Proposals and Extended Abstracts for 
details.

Student Paper Contest and Hands-on Paper Contest:
Entries for these two contests should be prepared as contributed
papers. Identify your submission as a contest entry when you upload
your manuscript electronically. Please see Guidelines for Paper 
Contest and Hands-on Paper Contest for details.

Paper Acceptance:
Top 10% of accepted papers will be recommended to publish in the Asian
Journal of Control (SCI).

Sponsored by Chinese Automatic Control Society (CACS)
Co-Sponsored by National Science Council, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Ministry of Education, Taiwan, R.O.C.
IEEE Control Systems Society - Taipei Chapter
IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society - Taipei Chapter
IEEE Robotics and Automation Society - Taipei Chapter
In cooperation with 
The Society of Instrument and Control Engineers (SICE, Japan),
The Institute of Control, Automation and Systems Engineers (ICASE, 
Korea)

2007 CACS IACC Conference Secretariat:
The Secretariat of CACS 2007, Center for Advanced Industry Technology
and Precision Processing, National Chung Hsing University,
250, Kuo-Kuang Road, Taichung 40227, Taiwan, R.O.C.
E-mail: cacs2007@dragon.nchu.edu.tw, Phone: 886-4-22840688 ext.
601, Fax: 886-4-22856232

web site: click here

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc _aT_ mcmaster _dOt_ ca>

IFAC WORLD CONGRESS 2008
Seoul, Korea
July 6 - 11, 2008

We welcome you to the 17th IFAC World Congress which will be held in
Seoul, Korea, from July 6-11, 2008. The IFAC World Congress (IFAC WC)
is the world's premier conference in the field of automatic control. It
is assembled only once every three years, and is typically attended by
2,500 to 3,000 people. The 17th Congress will therefore provide an
excellent opportunity to present new results and learn about the most
advanced theories, technologies/methodologies, and applications in the
field of automatic control.

This is the first Congress after the IFAC celebrated its 50th
anniversary in Heidelberg, Germany in 2006, and we invite you to
participate in this first Congress of the second half of the IFAC
century. The highlights of the 17th IFAC WC include the following:

	Plenary lectures read by the luminaries, semi-plenary lectures
read by prominent leaders, and milestone reports read by various levels of IFAC
Technical Board officers
	The first Congress to practice the newly decreed Industrial
Paper Policy, and reciprocatorily assembled Highlight Programs related to
industrial innovations
	The first Congress to provide online access to all papers on
IFAC-PapersOnLine.net
	Financial support for young researchers from developing
countries

The 17th Congress will be held in Seoul, the capital city of Korea,
which is located along the Han River. It is the world's 10th largest
city, with a population of more than 10 million. In Seoul, the past and
present coexist in many fascinating ways. Centuries-old palaces, gates,
shrines, gardens, and priceless art collections in museums attest to
the illustrious past of the city, while the glistening landscape of
skyscrapers and modern streets represent its vibrant present.

We look forward to seeing our old and new friends in Seoul. You are
cordially invited to Seoul, Korea to the 17th IFAC World Congress.

 Timetable
	 
	
June 1, 2007		Opening of the submission site
September 8, 2007	Deadline for the submissions of
	- full draft contributed papers
	- invited session proposals
	- highlight session proposals
	- pre-Congress tutorials and workshops
	- video clips and abstracts
December 15, 2007	Notification of acceptance
January 1, 2008 	Preliminary program announcement
March 1, 2008		Deadline for the final submissions
April 1, 2008		Final program announcement
July 5-6, 2008		Pre-Congress tutorials and workshops
July 6-11, 2008 	The 2008 IFAC World Congress

web site: click here

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc _aT_ mcmaster _dOt_ ca>

SELECTIONS FROM IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY
VOLUME: 15, ISSUE: 4
JULY, 2007

1) On the Implementation of Supervised Control of Discrete Event
Systems

 Basile, F.; Chiacchio, P.

Abstract:

Supervisory control theory is well developed, but its use in industrial
applications can be limited by a set of problems arising when
supervisors have to be implemented on common control machines. As a
matter of fact, the asynchronous and undetermined nature of supervisors
makes their implementation on synchronous devices like programmable
logic controllers (PLCs) and PCs a complicated task. In this paper, an
overview on the existing techniques about this topic is given first.
Then, the supervised control approach is used to implement supervisors
and the supervised control architecture consisting of a controller and
a supervisor is completed by a dispatcher to obtain a closed-loop,
determined behavior. The main problems occurring in implementing
supervised control on synchronous devices are presented and discussed.
Finally, a method is proposed to translate automata, Petri Net or
colored Petri Net supervisors in structured text language, one of the
IEC 61131-3 standard languages, by preserving their structure and the
closed-loop behavior as expected from the theory.

web site: click here

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc _aT_ mcmaster _dOt_ ca>

SELECTIONS FROM IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN AND CYBERNETICS, PART
C:
VOLUME: 37, ISSUE: 4
JULY, 2007

1) Constructing and Refining Large-Scale Railway Models Represented by
Petri Nets

 Hagalisletto, A. M.; Bjrk, J.; Yu, I.; Enger, P.

2) Modeling and Conflict Detection of Crude Oil Operations for Refinery
Process Based on Controlled Colored Timed Petri Net

Wu , N.; Bai , L.; Chu , C.

3) Charging Information Collection Modeling and Analysis of GPRS
Networks

Wang , J.

4) Applying Petri Nets in Active Database Systems

Li, X.; Medina, J. M.; Chapa, S. V.

5) Navigation Behavior Selection Using Generalized Stochastic Petri
Nets for a Service Robot

Kim, G.; Chung, W.

6) Application of Petri Nets and Lagrangian Relaxation to Scheduling
Automatic Material-Handling Vehicles in 300-mm Semiconductor
Manufacturing

Liao, D.-Y.; Jeng , M.-D.; Zhou, M.-C.

7) Design of Liveness-Enforcing Supervisors for Flexible Manufacturing
Systems Using Petri Nets

Li, Z. W.; Hu, H. S.; Wang, An R.

8) Deadlock Detection and Avoidance Strategies for Automated Storage
and Retrieval Systems

Dotoli, M.; Fanti, M. P.

9) Designing an Evolutionary Strategizing Machine for Game Playing and
Beyond

Sipper, M.; Azaria, Y.; Hauptman, A.; Shichel, Y.

10) Synthesis of a Class of Discrete-Event Controllers for Large
Manufacturing Systems

Sanchez, A.; Douriet, J. G.; Ramirez, E.

11) Synthesis of Parallel Operation for Enhanced Chemical Plant
Operation

Gabbar, H. A.

web site: click here

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc _aT_ mcmaster _dOt_ ca>

SELECTIONS FROM IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
VOLUME: 33, ISSUE: 8
AUGUST, 2007

1) Semantics-Preserving Design of Embedded Control Software from
Synchronous Models

Leonardo Mangeruca, Massimo Baleani, Alberto Ferrari, Alberto
Sangiovanni-Vincentelli 

Abstract:

The design of embedded controllers is experiencing a growth in
complexity as embedded systems increase their functionality while they
become ubiquitous in electronic appliances, cars, airplanes, etc. As
requirements become more challenging, mathematical models gain
importance for mastering complexity. Among the different computational
models proposed, synchronous models have proved to be the most widely
used for control dominated applications. While synchronous models
simplify the way of dealing with concurrency by decoupling functional
and timing aspects, their software implementation on multitasking and
multiprocessor platforms is far from straightforward, because of the
asynchronous nature of most industrial software platforms. Known
solutions in the literature either restrict the solution space or focus
on special cases. We present a method for preserving the synchronous
semantics through buffer-based intertask communication mechanisms,
grounded on an abstraction of the target platform. This allows us to
deal with any task set and, most importantly, being independent of the
implementation, to explore the design space effectively.

2) Integrating formal verification and conformance testing for reactive
systems 

Camille Constant, Thierry Jeron, Herve Marchand, Vlad Rusu 

Abstract: 

Not Available.

web site: click here

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc _aT_ mcmaster _dOt_ ca>

SELECTIONS FROM IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
VOLUME: 4, ISSUE: 3
JULY, 2007

1) Control of Nondeterministic Discrete Event Systems for Simulation
Equivalence

Zhou, C.; Kumar, R.

Abstract:

This paper studies supervisory control of discrete event systems
subject to specifications modeled as nondeterministic automata. The
control is exercised so that the controlled system is simulation
equivalent to the (nondeterministic) specification. Properties
expressed in the universal fragment of the branching-time logic
$CTL^{ast}$ can equivalently be expressed as simulation equivalence
specifications. This makes the simulation equivalence a natural choice
for behavioral equivalence in many applications and it has found wide
applicability in abstraction-based approaches to verification. While
simulation equivalence is more general than language equivalence, we
show that existence as well as synthesis of both the target and range
control problems remain polynomially solvable. Our development shows
that the simulation relation is a preorder over automata, with the
union and the synchronization of the automata serving as an infimal
upperbound and a supremal lowerbound, respectively. For the special
case when the plant is deterministic, the notion of
state-controllable-similar is introduced as a necessary and sufficient
condition for the existence of similarity enforcing supervisor. We also
present conditions for the existence of a similarity enforcing
supervisor that is deterministic.

2) An Incremental Petri Net-Based Approach to the Modeling of
Production Sequences in Manufacturing Systems

Castelnuovo, A. A.; Ferrarini, L. L.; Piroddi, L. L.

Abstract:

A crucial step in the logic-control design for flexible manufacturing
systems is the modeling of the desired behavior in terms of production
sequences. These are typically expressed as a series of informal
specifications which are to be translated into a formal model. The
present paper introduces a Petri net-based methodology for the modeling
of production sequences conceived as an incremental process, which
progressively adds subnets to a partial model until all specifications
have been included. A formal verification of the model is performed at
every stage, so that specifications, which are incongruent with the
current model and can jeopardize its correctness, can be detected and
rejected or modified. No unnecessary modeling constraints are imposed
on the model class and behaviors characterized by complex
alternative - parallel relationships between operations can be
represented. A specific algorithm is provided for the automatic
synthesis of complex connection structures in the model, allowing for
greater flexibility and complexity in the design process.

3) Integrating Temporal Logic as a State-Based Specification Language
for Discrete-Event Control Design in Finite Automata

Seow, K. T.

Abstract:

This paper presents and analyzes a correct and complete translation
algorithm that converts a class of propositional linear-time
temporal-logic (PTL) formulae to deterministic finite (-trace)
automata. The translation algorithm is proposed as a specification
interface for finitary control design of discrete-event systems (DESs).
While there has been a lot of computer science research that connects
PTL formulae to $omega$ -automata, there is relatively little prior
work that translates state-based PTL formulae in the context of a
finite-state DES model, to event-based finite automata—the formalism
on
which well-established control synthesis methods exist. The proposed
translation allows control requirements to be more easily described and
understood in temporal logic, widely recognized as a useful
specification language for its intuitively appealing operators that
provide the natural-language expressiveness and readability needed to
express and explain these requirements. Adding such a translation
interface could therefore effectively combine specifiability and
readability in temporal logic with prescriptiveness and computability
in finite automata. The former temporal-logic features support
specification while the latter automata features support the
prescription of DES dynamics and algorithmic computations. A practical
implementation of the interface has been developed, providing an
enabling technology for writing readable control specifications in PTL
that it translates for discrete-event control synthesis in
deterministic finite automata. Two application examples illustrate the
use of the proposed temporal-logic interface. Practical implications of
the complexity of the translation algorithm are discussed.

4) Deadlock Resolution in Automated Manufacturing Systems With Robots

Wu, N.; Zhou, M.

Abstract:

An automated manufacturing system (AMS) contains a number of versatile
machines (or workstations), buffers, and an automated material handling
system (MHS). The MHS can be an automated guide vehicle (AGV) system,
and/or a system that consists of multiple robots. Deadlock resolution
in AMS is an important issue. For the AMS with an AGV system as MHS,
the problems of deadlock resolution for part processing process and AGV
system as an integrated system has been studied. It is shown that AGVs
can serve as both material handling devices and central buffers at the
same time to help resolve deadlocks. For AMS with robots as MHS, the
existing work treated the robots just as material handling devices and
showed that the robots had contribution to deadlock. In this paper,
such AMS is modeled by resource-oriented Petri nets. Contrary to the
existing work, it is shown that the robots have no contribution to
deadlock by adopting such nets to control AMS. More interestingly, they
can be used to resolve deadlock by serving as temporary part storage
devices. A new deadlock control policy is proposed by treating robots
as both material handling devices and buffers. The new policy
outperforms the existing ones.

web site: click here

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc _aT_ mcmaster _dOt_ ca>

SELECTIONS FROM IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN AND CYBERNETICS, PART
B
VOLUME: 37, ISSUE: 4
AUGUST, 2007

1) A Self-Learning Fuzzy Discrete Event System for HIV/AIDS Treatment
Regimen Selection

 Ying, H.; Lin, F.; MacArthur, R. D.; Cohn, J. A.; Barth-Jones, D. C.;
Ye, H.; Crane, L. R.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Human Immunodeficiency
Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) treatment
guidelines are modified several times per year to reflect the rapid
evolution of the field (e.g., emergence of new antiretroviral drugs).
As such, a treatment-decision support system that is capable of
self-learning is highly desirable. Based on the fuzzy discrete event
system (FDES) theory that we recently created, we have developed a
self-learning HIV/AIDS regimen selection system for the initial round
of combination antiretroviral therapy, one of the most complex
therapies in medicine. The system consisted of a treatment objectives
classifier, fuzzy finite state machine models for treatment regimens,
and a genetic-algorithm-based optimizer. Supervised learning was
achieved through automatically adjusting the parameters of the models
by the optimizer. We focused on the four historically popular regimens
with 32 associated treatment objectives involving the four most
important clinical variables (potency, adherence, adverse effects, and
future drug options). The learning targets for the objectives were
produced by two expert AIDS physicians on the project, and their
averaged overall agreement rate was 70.6%. The system's learning
ability and new regimen suitability prediction capability were tested
under various conditions of clinical importance. The prediction
accuracy was found between 84.4% and 100%. Finally, we retrospectively
evaluated the system using 23 patients treated by 11 experienced
nonexpert faculty physicians and 12 patients treated by the two experts
at our AIDS Clinical Center in 2001. The overall exact agreement
between the 13 physicians' selections and the system's choices was
82.9% with the agreement for the two experts being both 100%. For the
seven mismatched cases, the system actually chose more appropriate
regimens in four cases and equivalent regimens in another two cases. It
made a mistake in one- case. These (preliminary) results show that 1)
the System outperformed the nonexpert physicians and 2) it performed as
well as the expert physicians did. This learning and prediction
approach, as well as our original FDESs theory, is general purpose and
can be applied to other medical or nonmedical problems.

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