@INPROCEEDINGS{gaubert94d, author={S. Gaubert}, title={Rational Series over Dioids and Discrete Event Systems}, booktitle={Proc. of the 11th Conf. on Anal. and Opt. of Systems: Discrete Event Systems}, year={1994}, address={Sophia Antipolis}, month={June}, }

10 pages

We survey the different kinds of rational series which arise in the study of Discrete Event Systems (DES) and of certain related Markov Decision Processes. We show that the familiar classes of rational series admit useful counterparts for DES, when the scalars belong to some dioids such as the (max,+) semiring. The main interest of this series theoretical point of view consists in introducing some efficient algebraic techniques in the study of these dynamical systems.