Detectability of Discrete Event Systems

In this note, we investigate the detectability problem in discrete event systems. We assume that we do not know initially which state the system is in. The problem is to determine the current and subsequent states of the system based on a sequence of observations. The observation includes partial event observation and/or partial state observation, which leads to four possible cases. We further define four types of detectabilities: strong detectability, (weak) detectability, strong periodic detectability, and (weak) periodic detectability. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for these detectabilities. These conditions can be checked by constructing an observer, which models the estimation of states under different observations. The theory developed in this note can be used in feedback control and diagnosis. If the system is detectable, then the observer can be used as a diagnoser to diagnose the failure states of the system.