Master of Science in Engineering Università di Siena Discrete Event Systems March 2024 - June 2024

1  News

• The course has started on March 5th, 2024.
  • The lectures of the course will be given in presence only.
  • Instructional material (lecture notes, exercises, past exams, videos, etc.) can be found here.

2  About the instructor

2.1  Instructor

	Simone Paoletti, PhD
	Assistant Professor
	Building: San Niccolò
	Floor: 2
	Room: 229 (red circle on the map)
	Email:
	Phone: 0577 23 5977
	Web: http://www3.diism.unisi.it/~paoletti/

2.2  Office hours

• Contact the instructor via email.

3  About the course

3.1  Training objectives

• Discrete event systems are systems whose dynamic behaviour is driven by asynchronous occurrences of discrete events.
• Examples can be found in a variety of fields, such as control, computer science, automated manufacturing, and communication and transportation networks.
• The aim of this course is to introduce several modelling, simulation and analysis tools for discrete event systems.
• Tutorials will be an important part of this course to put into practice the studied tools.

3.2  Required background

• Linear algebra (matrices and vectors)
• Probability theory (basic concepts, random variables, etc.)

3.3  Organization

• Students
  • MSc Artificial Intelligence and Automation Engineering (1^st year)
  • MSc Engineering Management (1^st year)
• Number of credits: 6
• Student workload (estimated):  ∼ 150 hours
  • Of which in class:  ∼ 54 hours

3.4  Syllabus

• Logical models of discrete event systems
• Timed models of discrete event systems
• Stochastic timed models of discrete event systems
• Continuous-time Markov chains
• Stochastic equivalence of discrete event models
• Queueing theory and Markovian queueing networks

• Simulation of discrete event systems
• Estimation of performance indexes
• As-is and what-if analysis

3.5  Teaching methods

• The course is organized in lectures (60%) and tutorials (40%).

3.6  Textbook

[CL08] C.G. Cassandras, S. Lafortune, "Introduction to discrete event systems". 2nd ed., Springer, 2008.

4  About the exams

4.1  Learning assessment procedures

• The final exam is structured into three phases:
  1. A written test, where students are asked to solve exercises on the first part of the course.
  2. A Matlab project, where students practice the topics of the second part of the course.
  3. An oral test, consisting in a broad-spectrum discussion on the topics of the course, including theory and exercises.
• The Matlab project is assigned only to students who have passed the written test.
• For the Matlab project, groups of max 4 students can be formed.
• The oral test is enabled only if the average grade of written test and project is ≥ 18 and both grades ≥ 15 (out of 30).
• The final grade takes into account the performance in all phases, with greater weight given to the oral test.
• Failing the oral test implies to repeat the written test, while the project is maintained.
• The language for the oral test can be either English or Italian.

• The written test of the final exam can be replaced with a midterm test held at two thirds of the course.

5  About the lectures

5.1  Timetable

• Tuesday - from 8:30 AM to 11:45 AM (room F)
• Thursday - from 2:30 PM to 4:00 PM (room F)

5.2  Lecture schedule