Minimal observability of Boolean control networks (Q2670732)

The minimum observability of Boolean control networks (BCNs) is investigated in this paper. It is interesting and necessary to investigate the minimal observability problem for BCNs. The following three problems are solved: (1) whether a given system is observable; (2) how to design sensors to make a system observable; (3) how to obtain the minimum number of nodes that are needed to be observed directly, such that the resulted system is observable. The contribution of this paper is as follows: (i) A graphic approach is proposed to determine the observability of BCNs, followed by an algorithm to search for the set of key supernodes. (ii) All the available schemes (including the optimal scheme) of designing direct sensors can be obtained by solving certain equations. (iii) The minimal number of directly measured nodes can be found by solving a minimum set covering the problem. In all, the paper is valuable and well organized.