Using CLP to Model Hybrid Systems

Hybrid systems are the result of merging the two most commonly used models of dynamical systems, namely continuous dynamical systems defined by differential equations, and discrete event systems defined by automata. One can view hybrid systems as constrained systems. The constraints are used to describe the possible flows, invariants and transitions on one hand, and to mark certain parts of the state space (e.g. the set of initial states, or the set of unsafe state) on the other hand. Therefore, it is natural to use Constraint Logic Programming (CLP) as an approach to model hybrid systems. One advantage from this approach is that the problem of analyzing hybrid systems can be solved by execution of the corresponding clp programs. This paper uses clp to model hybrid concurrent systems. This is possible by controlling the execution of the concurrent hybrid systems using time constraints of events.