This monograph presents a systematic top-down approach to distributed control synthesis of
discrete-event systems (DES). The approach is called supervisor localization its essence is
the allocation of external supervisory control action to individual component agents as their
internal control strategies. The procedure is: first synthesize a monolithic supervisor to
achieve globally optimal and nonblocking controlled behavior then decompose the monolithic
supervisor into local controllers one for each agent. The collective behavior of the resulting
local controllers is identical to that achieved by the monolithic supervisor. The basic
localization theory is first presented in the Ramadge-Wonham language-based supervisory control
framework then demonstrated with distributed control examples of multi-robot formations
manufacturing systems and distributed algorithms. An architectural approach is adopted to
apply localization to large-scale DES this yields a heterarchical localization procedure
which is also demonstrated with benchmark examples. Moreover a state-based framework
state-tree structures is exploited for efficient computation of localization. Finally
localization is extended to timed DES which addresses distributed control synthesis with
temporal specifications. The authors' TCT software and sourcecode will help the reader to
reproduce the results demonstrated in the examples. Academic researchers and graduate students
interested in discrete-event and distributed systems and control will find this book an
instructive resource. It will also be useful for researchers in manufacturing supply-chain and
logistics and practitioners in related industries.
