Multi-agent product systems: controllability and non-blocking properties

Multi-agent (MA) product systems are defined in Romanovski and Caines (2005), where the notion of an MA controllable vector language specification was introduced, and necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a supervisor for such a specification were derived. In this paper we present a set of results concerning the controllability of an MA product system and its component structures (such as standard controllability and the MA controllability of projections). The non-blocking property under the MA product construction is then formulated, and necessary and sufficient conditions are established for this property to hold. Several examples are given to illustrate the results of the paper