State-feedback control of fuzzy discrete-event systems.

In a 2002 paper, we combined fuzzy logic with discrete-event systems (DESs) and established an automaton model of fuzzy DESs (FDESs). The model can effectively represent deterministic uncertainties and vagueness, as well as human subjective observation and judgment inherent to many real-world problems, particularly those in biomedicine. We also investigated optimal control of FDESs and applied the results to optimize HIV/AIDS treatments for individual patients. Since then, other researchers have investigated supervisory control problems in FDESs, and several results have been obtained. These results are mostly derived by extending the traditional supervisory control of (crisp) DESs, which are string based. In this paper, we develop state-feedback control of FDESs that is different from the supervisory control extensions. We use state space to describe the system behaviors and use state feedback in control. Both disablement and enforcement are allowed. Furthermore, we study controllability based on the state space and prove that a controller exists if and only if the controlled system behavior is (state-based) controllable. We discuss various properties of the state-based controllability. Aside from novelty, the proposed new framework has the advantages of being able to address a wide range of practical problems that cannot be effectively dealt with by existing approaches. We use the diabetes treatment as an example to illustrate some key aspects of our theoretical results.