A Supervisory Control Theoretic Approach to the Analysis of Democratic Progress

• Published in: International journal of control, automation, and systems Vol. 16; no. 2; pp. 452 - 460
• Main Authors: Park, Seong-Jin, Yang, Jung-Min
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bucheon / Seoul Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems and The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers 01-04-2018; Springer Nature B.V; 제어·로봇·시스템학회
• Subjects: Control; Control systems; Control theory; Controllability; Discrete event systems; Engineering; Labor unions; Mechatronics; Observability (systems); Regular Paper; Robotics; Specifications; Stability; Supervisors; Supervisory control; 제어계측공학; Automaton; supervisory control; democracy; discrete event system
• ISSN: 1598-6446; 2005-4092
• DOI: 10.1007/s12555-017-0030-5

In this paper, we show that supervisory control theory of discrete event systems can serve as a methodology to analyze the principle of democratic progress. For this purpose, we address a new supervisory control problem in which each local supervisor is designed with its own private specification, and an additional progressive specification is given as a global objective for a system to follow. We present the controllability and power-observability as the main conditions for a controlled system to meet a progressive specification in the sense that the number of local supervisors meeting private specifications increases as the controlled system evolves. We then demonstrate that the developed theory can be used to analyze the principle of democratic progress in a systematical way through a case study of labor unions in the Unites States.