Applications of Discrete Event Systems
Spyros Reveliotis
School of Industrial & Systems Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
spyros@isye.gatech.edu
Abstract— This article provides an overview of the
problems addressed by DES theory, with an emphasis
on their connection to various application contexts.
The primary intentions are to reveal the calibre and
the strengths of this theory, and to direct the in-
terested reader, through the listed citations, to the
corresponding literature. The concluding part of the
article also identifies some remaining challenges and
further opportunities for the area.
Index Terms— Discrete Event Systems; Applications
I. Introduction
Discrete Event Systems (DES) theory «LINK TO
“Models for Discrete Event Systems: An Overview”,
Christos Cassandras», [CL08], [SSvSe13] emerged in the
late 1970’s / early 1980’s from the effort of the controls
community to address the control needs of applications
concerning some complex production and service op-
erations, like those taking place in manufacturing and
other workflow systems, telecommunication and data-
processing systems, and transportation systems. These
operations were seeking the ability to support higher
levels of efficiency and productivity, and more demanding
notions of quality of product and service. At the same
time, the thriving computing technologies of the era,
and in particular the emergence of the micro-processor,
were cultivating, and to a significant extent supporting,
visions of ever-increasing automation and autonomy for
the aforementioned operations. The DES community set
out to provide a systematic and rigorous understanding
of the dynamics that drive the aforementioned operations
and their complexity, and to develop a control paradigm
that would define and enforce the target behaviors for
those environments in an effective and robust manner.
In order to address the aforementioned objectives, the
controls community had to extend its methodological
base, borrowing concepts, models and tools from other
disciplines. Among these disciplines, the following two
played a particularly central role in the development
of the DES theory: (i) Theoretical Computer Science
(TCS), and (ii) Operations Research (OR). As a new
research area, DES thrived on the analytical strength and
the synergies that resulted from the rigorous integration
of the modeling frameworks that were borrowed from
TCS and OR. Furthermore, the DES community sub-
stantially extended those borrowed frameworks, bringing
in them many of its control-theoretic perspectives and
concepts.
In general, DES-based approaches are characterized by
(i) their emphasis on a rigorous and formal represen-
tation of the investigated systems and the underlying
dynamics; (ii) a double focus on time-related aspects and
metrics that define traditional/standard notions of per-
formance for the considered systems, but also on a more
behaviorally-oriented analysis that is necessary for ensur-
ing fundamental notions of “correctness”, “stability” and
“safety” of the system operation, especially in the context
of the aspired levels of autonomy; (iii) the interplay
between the two lines of analysis mentioned in item (ii)
above, and the further connection of this analysis to
structural attributes of the underlying system; and (iv)
an effort to complement the analytical characterizations
and developments with design procedures and tools that
will provide solutions provably consistent with the posed
specifications, and effectively implementable within the
time and other resource constraints imposed by the “real-
time” nature of the target applications.
The rest of this article overviews the current achieve-
ments of DES theory with respect to (w.r.t.) the different
classes of problems that have been addressed by it,
and highlights the potential that is defined by these
achievements for a range of motivating applications. On
the other hand, the constricted nature of this article
does not allow an expansive treatment of the aforemen-
tioned themes. Hence, the provided coverage is further
supported and supplemented by an extensive list of
references that will connect the interested reader to the
relevant literature.
II. A Tour of DES Problems and Applications
a) DES-based Behavioral Modeling, Analysis and Con-
trol: The basic characterization of behavior in the DES-
theoretic framework is through the various event se-
quences that can be generated by the underlying system.
Collectively, these sequences are known as the (formal)
language generated by the plant system, and the primary
intention is to restrict the plant behavior within a subset
of the generated event strings. The investigation of this
problem is further facilitated by the introduction of
certain mechanisms that act as formal representations of
the studied systems, in the sense that they generate the
same strings of events (i.e., the same formal language).
Since these models are concerned with the representa-
tion of the event sequences that are generated by DES,
and not by the exact timing of these events, they are
frequently characterized as untimed DES models. In the
practical applications of DES theory, the most popular
such models are the Finite State Automaton (FSA)
[HU79], [CL08], «LINK TO “Supervisory Control of
Discrete Event Systems”, W. Murray Wonham», «LINK
TO “Diagnosis of Discrete Event Systems”, Stephane
Lafortune» and the Petri Net (PN) [Mur89], [CL08],
«LINK TO “Modeling, analysis and control of Discrete
Event Systems as Petri nets”, Manuel Silva».
In the context of DES applications, these modeling
frameworks have been used to provide succinct char-
acterizations of the underlying event-driven dynamics,
and to design controllers, in the form of supervisors,
that will restrict these dynamics so that they abide to
safety, consistency, fairness, and other similar considera-
tions «LINK TO “Supervisory Control of Discrete Event
Systems”, W. Murray Wonham». As a more concrete
example, in the context of contemporary manufacturing,
DES-based behavioral control – frequently referred to
as supervisory control (SC) – has been promoted as
a systematic methodology for the synthesis and veri-
fication of the control logic that is necessary for the
support of the, so called, SCADA (Supervisory Control
and Data Acquisition) function. This control function is
typically implemented through the Programmable Logic
Controllers (PLCs) that have been employed in contem-
porary manufacturing shop-floors, and DES SC theory
can support it (i) by providing more rigor and specificity
to the models that are employed for the underlying plant
behavior and the imposed specifications, and (ii) by
offering the ability to synthesize control policies that are
provably correct by construction. Some example works
that have pursued the application of DES SC along these
lines can be found in [BHWTF93], [Bra96], [PTK99],
[CHK03], [EAT06] and [ARLF10].
On the other hand, the aforementioned activity has
also defined a further need for pertinent interfaces that
will translate (a) the plant structure and the target
behavior to the necessary DES-theoretic models, and (b)
the obtained policies to PLC executables. This need has
led to a line of research, in terms of representational
models and computational tools, that is complementary
to the core DES developments described in the previous
paragraphs. Indicatively we mention the development of
GRAFCET [DA92] and of the sequential function charts
(SFCs) [Lew98] from the earlier times, while some more
recent endeavor along these lines is reported in [WGD11],
[ALH12] and the references cited therein.
Besides its employment in the manufacturing domain,
DES SC theory has also been considered for the coordi-
nation of the communicating processes that take place
in various embedded systems [FWT07]; the systematic
validation of the embedded software that is employed in
various control applications, ranging from power systems
and nuclear plants, to aircraft and automotive electronics
[LK12]; the synthesis of the control logic in the elec-
tronic switches that are utilized in telecom and data
networks; and for the modeling, analysis and control of
the operations that take place in health-care systems
[SDBL08]. [WLM11] gives a very interesting account of
the gains, but also the extensive challenges, experienced
by a team of researchers who have tried to apply formal
methods, similar to those that have been promoted by
the behavioral DES theory, to the development and
certification of the software that manages some safety-
critical operations for Canadian nuclear plants.
Apart from control, untimed DES models have also
been employed for the diagnosis of critical events, like
certain failures, that cannot be observed explicitly, but
their occurrence can be inferred from some resultant
behavioral patterns [SSL+ 96] «LINK TO “Diagnosis of
Discrete Event Systems”, Stephane Lafortune». More
recently, the relevant methodology has been extended
with prognostic capability [KT10], while an interest-
ing variation of it addresses the “dual” problem that
concerns the design of systems where certain events or
behavioral patterns must remain undetectable by an
external observer who has only partial observation of
the system behavior; this last requirement has been
formally characterized by the notion of “opacity” in
the relevant literature, and it finds application in the
design and operation of secure systems [DDM10], [SH12],
[SH14], [WL13] «LINK TO “Opacity for Discrete Event
Systems”, Christoforos Hadjicostis».
b) Dealing with the underlying computational com-
plexity: As revealed from the discussion of the previous
paragraphs, many of the applications of DES SC theory
concern the integration and coordination of behavior that
is generated by a number of interacting components. In
these cases, the formal models that are necessary for the
description of the underlying plant behavior may grow
their size very fast, and the algorithms that are involved
in the behavioral analysis and control synthesis may
become practically intractable. Nevertheless, the rigorous
methodological base that underlies DES theory provides
also a framework for addressing these computational
challenges in an effective and structured manner.
More specifically, DES SC theory provides conditions
under which the control specifications can be decompos-
able to the constituent plant components while main-
taining the integrity and correctness of the overall plant
behavior «LINK TO “Supervisory Control of Discrete
Event Systems”, W. Murray Wonham», [Won06]. The
aforementioned works of [Bra96] and [EAT06] provide
some concrete examples for the application of modular
control synthesis. But there are also fundamental prob-
lems addressed by SC theory and practice that require a various DES applications. We shall return to this capabil-
holistic view of the underlying plant and its operation, ity in the next paragraph that discusses the achievements
and thus, they are not amenable to the aforementioned of DES theory in this domain.
decomposing solutions. DES SC theory can provide ef-
c) DES performance control and the interplay among
fective and tractable solutions for many of these cases as
structure, behavior and performance: DES theory is also
well, by, e.g., (i) helping identify special plant structure,
interested in the performance modeling, analysis and
of practical relevance, for which the target supervisors
control of its target applications w.r.t. time-related as-
are implementable in a computationally efficient manner,
pects like throughput, resource utilization, experienced
or (ii) developing customized structured approaches that
latencies and congestion patterns. To support this type
can systematically trade-off the original specifications for
of analysis, the untimed DES behavioral models are
computational tractability. Additional substantial lever-
extended to their timed versions. This extension takes
age in such endeavors is provided by the availability
place by endowing the original untimed models with
of more than one formal frameworks for tackling these
additional attributes that characterize the experienced
problems, with complementary modeling and analytical
delays between the activation of an event and its execu-
capabilities. In particular, Petri nets can be an especially
tion (provided that it is not preempted by some other
useful tool in the context of these endeavors, since they
conflicting event). Timed models are further classified
(a) provide very compact representations of the underly-
by the extent and the nature of the randomness that
ing plant dynamics, (b) capture effectively the connection
is captured by them. A basic such categorization is
of these dynamics to the structural properties of the
between deterministic models, where the aforementioned
plant, and also (c) admit analytical techniques of a more
delays take fixed values for every event, and stochastic
algebraic nature that do not require an explicit enumer-
models which admit more general distributions. From an
ation of the underlying state space [Mur89], [HKG97],
application standpoint, timed DES models connect DES
[CGS13] «LINK TO “Modeling, analysis and control of
theory to the multitude of applications that have been
Discrete Event Systems as Petri nets”, Manuel Silva».
addressed by Dynamic Programming, Stochastic Control
A particular application that has benefited from, and, and scheduling theory [Ber95], [Mey08], [Pin02], «LINK
at the same time, has significantly promoted the capa- TO “Control and Optimization of Stochastic Discrete
bilities of DES SC theory to deal in an effective and Event Systems”, Xiren Cao». Also, in their most general
structured manner with the high inherent complexity of definition, stochastic DES models provide the theoretical
the targeted behaviors, is that concerning the deadlock- foundation of Discrete Event Simulation [BCINN09],
free operation of many systems where a set of processes «LINK TO “Discrete Event System Simulation”, Wei
that execute concurrently and in a staged manner, are Li».
competing, at each of their processing stages, for the allo-
Similar to the case of behavioral DES theory, a practical
cation of a finite set of reusable resources. In DES theory,
concern that challenges the application of timed DES
this problem is known as the liveness-enforcing super-
models for performance modeling, analysis and control
vision of sequential resource allocation systems (RAS)
is the very large size of these models, even for fairly
[Rev05], [ZFe04], and it underlies the operation of many
small systems. DES theory has tried to circumvent these
contemporary applications: from the resource allocation
computational challenges through the development of
taking place in contemporary manufacturing shop floors
methodology that enables the assessment of the system
[ECM95], [RF96], [JXP02], to the traveling and/or work-
performance, over a set of possible configurations, from
space negotiation in robotic systems [RR11], automated
the observation of its behavior and the resultant perfor-
railway [GFS06] and other guidepath-based traffic sys-
mance at a single configuration. The required observa-
tems [Rev00], to internet-based workflow management
tions can be obtained through simulation, and in many
systems like those envisioned for e-commerce and cer-
cases, they can be collected from a single realization –
tain banking and insurance claim processing applications
or sample path – of the observed behavior; but then,
[VdA97], and to the allocation of the semaphores that
the considered methods can also be applied on the
control the accessibility of shared resources by concur-
actual system, and thus, they become a tool for real-
rently executing threads in parallel computer programs
time optimization, adaptation and learning. Collectively,
[LWC+ 13]. A comprehensive and systematic introduc-
the aforementioned methods define a “sensitivity”-based
tion to the DES-based modeling of RAS and the problem
approach to DES performance modeling, analysis and
of their liveness-enforcing supervision can be found in
control [CL08], «LINK TO “Perturbation Analysis of
[Rev17].
Discrete Event Systems”, Yorai Wardi». Historically,
Closing the above discussion on the ability of DES DES sensitivity analysis originated in the early 1980’s
theory to address effectively the complexity that under- in an effort to address the performance analysis and
lies the DES SC problem, we should point out that the optimization of queueing systems w.r.t. certain structural
same merits of the theory have also enabled the effective parameters like the arrival and processing rates [HC91].
management of the complexity that underlies problems But the current theory addresses more general stochastic
related to the performance modeling and control of the DES models that bring it closer to broader endeavors
to support incremental optimization, approximation and
learning in the context of stochastic optimal control
[Cao07]. Some particular applications of DES sensitivity
analysis for the performance optimization of production,
telecom and computing systems can be found in [CS88],
[Cas94], [PC99], [HdMSS99], [FX02], [SAGS05], [LR15].
Another interesting development in time-based DES
theory is the theory of (max,+) algebra [BCOQ92],
[HCSR18]. In its practical applications, this theory ad-
dresses the timed dynamics of systems that involve the
synchronization of a number of concurrently executing
processes with no conflicts among them, and it pro-
vides important structural results on the factors that
determine the behavior of these systems in terms of
the occurrence rates of various critical events, and the
experienced latencies among them. Motivational appli-
cations of (max,+) algebra can be traced in the design
and control of telecommunication and data networks,
manufacturing, and railway systems, and more recently
the theory has found considerable practical application
in the computation of repetitive / cyclical schedules
that seek to optimize the throughput rate of automated
robotic cells and of the cluster tools that are used in
semiconductor manufacturing [PTK99], [Lee08], [KL12].
Both, sensitivity-based methods and the theory of
(max,+) algebra, that were discussed in the previous
paragraphs, are enabled by the explicit, formal model-
ing of the DES structure and behavior in the pursued
performance analysis and control. This integrative mod-
eling capability that is supported by DES theory also
enables a profound analysis of the impact of the imposed
behavioral-control policies upon the system performance,
and, thus, the pursuance of a more integrative approach
to the synthesis of the behavioral and the performance-
oriented control policies that are necessary for any partic-
ular DES instantiation. This is a rather novel topic in the
relevant DES literature, and some recent works in this
direction can be found in [Cao05], [MS13], [DHHRC13],
[LR15], [LR16].
d) The roles of abstraction and fluidification: The
notions of “abstraction” and “fluidification” play a signif-
icant role in mastering the complexity that arises in many
DES applications. Furthermore, both of these concepts
have an important role in defining the essence and the
boundaries of DES-based modeling.
In general systems theory, abstraction can be broadly
defined as the effort to develop simplified models for
the considered dynamics that retain, however, adequate
information to resolve the posed questions in an ef-
fective manner. In DES theory, abstraction has been
pursued w.r.t. the modeling of, both, the timed and
untimed behavior, giving rise to hierarchical structures
and models. A theory for hierarchical SC is presented in
[Won06], while some applications of hierarchical SC in
the manufacturing domain are presented in [HCdQ+ 10],
[Sch12]. In general, hierarchical SC relies on a “spa-
tial” decomposition that tries to localize/encapsulate the
plant behavior into a number of modules that interact
through the communication structure that is defined by
the hierarchy. On the other hand, when it comes to
timed DES behavior and models, a popular approach
seeks to define a hierarchical structure for the underly-
ing decision-making process by taking advantage of the
different time scales that correspond to the occurrence
of the various event types. Some particular works that
formalize and systematize this idea in the application
context of production systems can be found in [Ger94],
[SZ94] and the references cited therein.
In fact, the DES models that have been employed in
many application areas can be perceived themselves as
abstractions of dynamics of a more continuous, time-
driven nature, where the underlying plant undergoes
some fundamental (possibly structural) transition upon
the occurrence of certain events that are defined either
endogenously or exogenously w.r.t. these dynamics. The
combined consideration of the discrete-event dynamics
that are generated in the manner described above, with
the continuous, time-driven dynamics that character-
ize the modalities of the underlying plant, has led to
the extension of the original DES theory to the, so
called, hybrid systems theory. Hybrid systems theory
is itself very rich, and it is covered in another section
of this encyclopedia (see also «LINK TO “Connections
between Discrete Event Systems and Hybrid Systems”,
Alessandro Giua»). From an applications standpoint, it
increases substantially the relevance of the DES modeling
framework, and brings this framework to some new and
exciting applications. Some of the most prominent such
applications concern the coordination of autonomous ve-
hicles and robotic systems, and a nice anthology of works
concerning the application of hybrid systems theory in
this particular application area can be found in the IEEE
Robotics and Automation magazine of September 2011.
These works also reveal the strong affinity that exists
between hybrid systems theory and the DES modeling
paradigm. Along similar lines, hybrid systems theory
underlies also the endeavors for the development of the
Automated Highway Systems that have been explored
for the support of the future urban traffic needs [HV00].
Finally, hybrid systems theory and its DES component
have been explored more recently as potential tools
for the formal modeling and analysis of the molecular
dynamics that are studied by systems biology [Cur12].
Fluidification, on the other hand, is the effort to rep-
resent as continuous flows, dynamics that are essentially
of discrete-event type, in order to alleviate the computa-
tional challenges that typically result from discreteness
and its combinatorial nature. The resulting models serve
as approximations of the original dynamics, frequently
they have the formal structure of hybrid systems, and
they define a basis for developing “relaxations” for the
originally addressed problems. Usually, their justification
is of an ad hoc nature, and the quality of the established
approximations is empirically assessed on the basis of
the delivered results (by comparing these results to some
“baseline” performance). There are, however, a number
of cases where the relaxed fluid model has been shown
to retain important behavioral attributes of its original
counterpart [Dai95]. Furthermore, some recent works
have investigated more analytically the impact of the
approximation that is introduced by these models on
the quality of the delivered results [WC13]. On the
other hand, some works exemplifying the application of
fluidification in the DES-theoretic modeling frameworks,
and the potential advantages that this approach brings
in various application contexts, can be found in [Sri04],
[Mey08], [DA05], [CY13], [IR19]. Finally, the work of
[VMJS13] provides a nice introduction on the pursuance
of the “fluidification” concept in the Petri net modeling
framework, while the recent work of [IR18] demonstrates
very vividly how the corresponding results enable a syn-
ergistic employment of all the different representations of
DES behavior that have been discussed in this document,
in a totally integrative and seamless manner.
III. Summary and Future Directions
The discussion of the previous section has revealed
the extensive application range and potential of DES
theory, and its ability to provide structured and rigorous
solutions to complex and sometimes ill-defined problems.
On the other hand, the same discussion has revealed the
challenges that underlie many of the DES applications.
The complexity that arises from the intricate and inte-
grating nature of most DES models is perhaps the most
prominent of these challenges. This complexity manifests
itself in the involved computations, but also in the need
for further infrastructure, in terms of modeling interfaces
and computational tools, that will render DES theory
more accessible to the practitioner.
The DES community is aware of this need, and the
last few years have seen the development of a number
of computational platforms that seek to implement and
leverage the existing theory by connecting it to various
application settings; indicatively, we mention DESUMA
[RLG06], SUPREMICA [AFFM06], and TCT [FW06],
that support DES behavioral modeling, analysis and
control along the lines of DES SC theory, while the
website entitled “The Petri Nets World” has an extensive
database of tools that support modeling and analysis
through untimed and timed variations of the Petri net
model. Model checking tools, like SMV and NuSPIN,
that are used for verification purposes, are also important
enablers for the practical application of DES theory, and,
of course, there are a number of programming languages
and platforms, like Arena, Automod, and Simio, that
support discrete event simulation. However, with the ex-
ception of the discrete-event-simulation software, which
is a pretty mature industry, the rest of the aforemen-
tioned endeavors currently evolve primarily within the
academic and the broader research community. Hence,
a remaining challenge for the DES community is the
strengthening and expansion of the aforementioned com-
putational platforms to robust and user-friendly compu-
tational tools. The availability of such industrial-strength
computational tools, combined with the development of
a body of control engineers well-trained in DES theory,
will be catalytic for bringing all the developments that
were described in the earlier parts of this document even
closer to the industrial practice.
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