Hybrid automaton

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A hybrid automaton is a mathematical model for precisely describing systems where computational processes interact with physical processes. A simple example is a room-thermostat-heater system where the temperature of the room evolves according to laws of thermodynamics and the state of the heater (on/off); the thermostat senses the temperature, performs certain computations and turns the heater on and off. In general, hybrid automata have been used to model and analyze a variety of embedded systems including vehicle control systems, air-traffic controller, mobile robots, and processes form systems biology.

Formally, a hybrid automaton is a (possibly infinite) state machine augmented with differential equations. It is a standard model for describing a hybrid system.

Hybrid automata come in several flavors: The Alur-Henzinger hybrid automaton is a popular model; it was developed primarily for algorithmic analysis of hybrid systems model checking. The HyTech model checking tool is based on this model. The Hybrid Input/Output Automaton model has been developed more recently. This model enables compositional modeling and analysis of hybrid systems.

[edit] References

Rajeev Alur, Costas Courcoubetis, Nicolas Halbwachs, Thomas A. Henzinger, Pei-Hsin Ho, Xavier Nicollin, Alfredo Olivero, Joseph Sifakis, and Sergio Yovine The algorithmic analysis of hybrid systems. Theoretical Computer Science, volume 138(1), pages 3--34,1995.