Decentralized State Estimation via Breadth-First Search Through Partially Ordered Observation Sequences
Dajiang Sun, Christoforos N. Hadjicostis, Zhiwu Li · 2023
We investigate the state estimation problem under a decentralized observation architecture. More specifically, we consider a discrete event system, modeled by a nondeterministic finite automaton, whose behavior is partially observed and recorded at a set of observation sites with distinct capabilities. When prompted, these observation sites send their sequences of observations to a coordinator that fuses and analyzes this information to estimate the specific system states of interest (current-and initial-states). The notion of S-builder is introduced to systematically infer possible (totally ordered) sequences of observations and an algorithm is proposed for constructing a synchronizer in a breadth-first search manner to efficiently perform current-state estimation. With slight extensions, the synchronizer construction algorithm can be also applied towards initial-state estimation.