REALIZATION THEORY OF DISCRETE-EVENT SYSTEMS AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE UNIQUENESS AND UNIVERSALITY OF DEVS FORMALISM

Abstract

Many man-made systems have discrete event nature. Many modeling formalisms for discrete-event mechanisms have invented and been used for many problems. Among those models, the DEVS formalism is to provide natural and universal models in some sense. This paper first provides a realization theory of general discrete-event systems. That is, a behavioral definition of discrete-event system is defined, and then a state transition function of the system is constructed. Based on the realization, the uniqueness problem of representations for discrete-event systems is positively solved. Furthermore, as an application of that solution, this paper shows both the fact that a legitimate DEVS with surjective internal transition function is unique up to isomorphism in the class of state representations of the state system defined from the DEVS, and the fact that any discrete-event system has a DEVS realization. In this sense the DEVS modeling facility has the uniqueness and universality in modeling discrete event mechanisms.