Synthesis-Based Engineering course

With this course you can learn about Synthesis-Based Engineering (SBE). SBE is an engineering approach for the correct-by-construction development of supervisory controllers for cyber-physical systems. The approach combines model-based engineering with computer-aided design.

The course is written for engineers, students and whomever else is interested in improving their knowledge on supervisory controller development. The course explains the development of a proper supervisory controller using SBE, in a general way. This allows the knowledge that is gained during the course to be widely applied, in a variety of application domains, from health care to robotics, and infrastructure to warehousing. The course is therefore also suited for people with different backgrounds.

If you want to follow this course, it is useful to have knowledge in a technical field, such as computer science, mechanical engineering or electrical engineering. In any regard, you are expected to be capable of abstract thinking and to have some experience in problem solving. Knowledge of control systems in general, and specifically the behavior of water locks and production systems, will come in handy, but is not required. Modeling and programming skills will come in handy as well, but are also not required.

During the course, you will learn about supervisory control theory, discrete-event systems and hybrid systems. You will also make use of the CIF tools, that are part of the Eclipse ESCET™ toolkit (Eclipse Supervisory Control Engineering Toolkit). Using these tools, you will apply the theory in practice, to model and synthesize proper supervisory controllers. You will thus not only learn theory, but will also get experience in working with these tools.

The course is divided into six modules with different topics, and takes about 30 hours to complete. Through the various modules, you will familiarize yourself with the complete SBE development process to develop supervisory controllers. Besides synthesizing supervisory controllers, you will for instance also learn how to validate them.

During the course, you will work on two concrete cases, to practice what you have learned. The first case involves a water lock. The second case involves an industrial production system, called the Festo workstation.

Learning goals

At the end of the course, after thoroughly studying the course modules and making all the assignments, you will know and understand various concepts that are essential to SBE. You will then also have gained practical experience in developing supervisory controller using SBE, and the CIF language and tools of the ESCET toolkit. Don't worry if you don't understand all of these terms yet, as you'll learn about them during the course. But, if you already know and are already able to do all of the following, then this course may not be for you:

Know and understand discrete event systems theory, including what a discrete event system is, what the properties of such systems are, and what their abstraction levels are.
Know the definition of automata with associated terms, such as locations, states, events, transitions, variables, initialization and marking.
Be able to apply the synchronous composition of automata.
Know concepts encountered in supervisory control synthesis, such as plants, requirements, controllable and uncontrollable events, safety, non-blockingness, controllability, and maximal permissiveness.
Know the basic supervisory control problem and be able to apply the synthesis procedure manually on a simple uncontrolled system to gain a supervisory controller.
Know how automata and invariants can be used to specify requirements.
Be able to think in restrictions imposed by requirements on the behavior of the uncontrolled system.
Have a basic understanding of the CIF language, to be able to use CIF to make a model of the uncontrolled system and the requirements.
Be able to use the CIF tools to synthesize a supervisory controller.
Be able to use the CIF tools for simulation to validate the synthesized controller.
Have developed a controller for a water lock.
Have developed a controller for an industrial production system.

Learning materials

For this course, you will make use of some course files. These course files are bundled with the ESCET toolkit that is used during the course. There is no need to install the toolkit before you start the course, since you will get instructions on how to download and install it during the course. You will then also find out how to get the course files.

Course setup

The course consists of six modules. Each module starts by multiple sub-modules that explain the theory. At the end of each sub-module, you can test your understanding of the theory using a small quiz or some small exercises. After the theory part, there is a sub-module that explains how the theory can be applied using CIF. After the CIF sub-module, more challenging exercises are provided. These exercises require a deeper understanding of the theory, to be able to correctly apply the theory in practice. Throughout the course, you will work on developing a supervisory controller for a water lock. The water lock is a larger case, and in each module you will construct a part of it. At the end of each module, you will thus directly apply what you have learned to this case. In the sixth module, you will work on the more challenging Festo workstation case, where you will face new challenges to be solved.

The time required to follow the course is roughly 30 hours in total:

Read and study course modules (modules 1-5): 5 times 1.5 hours.
Make exercises (modules 1-5): 5 times 2.5 hours.
Develop a controller for the Festo workstation (module 6): 10 hours.

It is recommended to follow one module of the course per day (4 hours a day), with the sixth module being split over two days (5 hours a day). The full course can then be completed in 7 days.

Course modules

Module 1: Supervisory control of discrete event systems

In this module you are introduced to supervisory controllers for cyber-physical systems. You learn about the different engineering approaches for supervisory controllers, including synthesis-based engineering, and their advantages and disadvantages. One of the first challenges in engineering such systems is how to capture their behavior. You will learn how to express their behavior in models, that can be understood and reasoned about unambiguously. Especially for larger systems, and if multiple people studying a system's behavior, it is very useful if they all understand it in the same way. In this module, we will introduce discrete event systems modeled as automata, for that. You get started with using the Eclipse ESCET toolkit and the CIF tools, will make your first CIF models consisting of automata, and simulate them to understand their behavior. You are also introduced to the water lock case.

Go to Module 1

Module 2: Working with automata

In this module, you dive deeper into the concepts related to automata, and you will learn more about using multiple automata that interact. You learn about terms like reachability, deadlock, non-determinism and synchronization. You extend your knowledge of modeling automata with CIF, and learn new ways of using variables. And you will work with more CIF tools.