Hybrid system modeling and autonomous control systems

Abstract

Hybrid control systems contain two distinct types of sys-tems, continuous state and discrete-state, that interact with each other. Their study is essential in designing sequential supervisory controllers for continuous-state systems, and it is central in designing control systems with high degree of autonomy. After an introduction to intelligent autonomous control and its rela-tion to hybrid control, models for the plant, controller, and interface axe introduced. The interface contains memoryless mappings between the supervisor's symbolic domain and the plant's nonsymbolic state space. The simplicity and generality afforded by the assumed interface allows us to directly confront important system theoretic issues in the design of supervisory control systems, such as determinism, quasideterminism, and the relationship of hybrid system theory to the more mature theory of logical discrete event systems.