Model-based engineering of supervisory controllers for cyber-physical systems

Engineering of supervisory controllers for cyber-physical systems is a challenging task in practice, amongst others because of the high complexity of the uncontrolled system. A supervisory controller coordinates the behaviour of a (cyber-physical) system based on discrete-event observations of its state. It uses these observations to decide which activities the uncontrolled system can safely perform or to determine activities that (are more likely to) lead to acceptable system behaviour. In model-based engineering, models are used in the design process to show the correctness of a solution before it is actually implemented. The engineering of supervisory controllers for large and complex cyber-physical systems such as cyber-physical manufacturing and production systems requires dedicated engineering support. The Compositional Interchange Format language and toolset have been developed for this purpose. We illustrate a model-based engineering framework for supervisory control on a case study involving the coordination of autonomously navigating vehicles. We discuss the engineering steps involved in this framework such as modelling, supervisory control synthesis, and validation through simulation-based visualization, verification, real-time testing, and code generation, and illustrate some of these. We explain how the CIF language and supporting tools can be used for these typical activities.