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By means of Ramadge–Wonham supervisory control theory, supervisory controllers (supervisors) can be synthesized instead of designing them manually. This chapter presents an application of supervisory control to a patient support system for MRI scanners. The design process of the controller from its requirements to its actual implementation on real hardware has been done according to the synthesis-based engineering paradigm. This paradigm integrates the model-based engineering and supervisory control paradigms. The design process is supported by a tool framework that is based on the Compositional Interchange Format for hybrid systems (CIF). An experiment conducted in the course of the case-study indicates that this design process improves the evolvability of the controller significantly.

In the Model-Based Engineering (MBE) paradigm, models are the core elements in the design process of a system from its requirements to the actual implementation of the system. By means of Supervisory Control Theory (SCT), supervisory controllers (supervisors) can be synthesized instead of designingthem manually. In this paper, a framework based on the Compositional Interchange Format for hybrid systems (CIF) has been developed that integrates the MBE andthe SCT paradigms. To illustrate the framework, an industrial-size case study has been performed: 'synthesis of a supervisory controller for the patientsupport system of an MRI scanner'. In this case study, we address 1) modelling of the components and the control requirements; 2) synthesis of the supervisor;3) simulation of the synthesized supervisor and a hybrid model of the plant; and 4) real-time, simulation based control of the supervisor and the actual patient support system of the MRI scanner.