Enforcing Opacity in Discrete Event Systems via Delayed Observations

Abstract

Artificially introducing a delay in the observations of a system can be an effective mechanism to mask the system itself, with the goal to increase its opacity and thus its security. This work investigates opacity in discrete event systems with delayed observations. We focus on two questions: how to verify opacity under delayed observations, and how to synthesize sensor activation policies that guarantee opacity under such delayed conditions. To address these questions, we first introduce the definition of opacity under delayed observation and develop a corresponding verification method. We then extend such analysis tool into a synthesis tool by proposing an optimization approach for designing sensor activation policies guaranteeing opacity under delayed observations. An example is used to illustrate the analysis and synthesis procedures.