Controllability of Boolean control networks under asynchronous stochastic update with time delay

Abstract

In this article, the controllability of asynchronous Boolean control networks (ABCNs) with time-invariant delay is studied. Using semi-tensor product, Boolean control networks under Harvey’s asynchronous update with time delay are converted into linear representation, and a general formula of control-depending network transition matrices is achieved. Firstly, a necessary and sufficient condition is proposed to verify that only control-depending fixed points of ABCNs can be deterministically controlled. Secondly, respectively for three kinds of controls, the controllability of the non-deterministic logical dynamics is investigated, and formulas are given to show: a) the reachable sets at time s under a group of specified controls; b) the reachable sets at time s under arbitrary controls and c) the probability values from a given initial state to different target states. Moreover, we also discuss how to find the particular control sequence to reach a specified target state with the maximum probability. Examples are shown to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed scheme.