Interdependent Distinguishing Sensors Applied to Dispatch Control in the Poultry Industry

A distinguishing sensor is a formal mechanism that details the occurrence of certain events in a Discrete Event System (DES) according to the context they originate from, which aims to simplify design tasks. Sometimes, however, a distinction by a sensor may depend on another distinction, provided by another sensor, in a context dependency chain. In this case, the sensor itself becomes complex to be designed, affecting the entire control synthesis and the correct-by-construction controllers programming. This paper shows how multiple interdependent distinguishing sensors can be designed and integrated within the same DES scope. The approach is illustrated by a real process that corresponds to the dispatch flow of a poultry company. Two interdependent sensors are added to the shipping lines to automate the context-based separation of packaging. Such a solution would be unfeasible to be programmed manually, considering its chained combination of events.