Deterministic Finite State Automata based discrete event supervisory control has been investigated for over two decades. However, quantitative evaluation of supervisors was proposed by Dr. Asok Ray and his students couple of years ago. Based on this quantitative evaluation, most permissive optimal control policy can be obtained using an iterative algorithm.

This concept has been investigated on a GE XTE46 gas turbine engine model in the Complex Systems Simulation Laboratory at Penn State and several papers have been published on optimal control of gas turbine engines, hierarchical control of aircraft propulsion systems and optimal control of aircraft propulsion systems. Further development of the test bed towards aircraft integration opened a new window for integrated Aircraft + Engine simulations.

DES based hierarchical control blends the human intuition with the machine precision to obtain an intelligent decision making architecture. This kind of intelligent systems are widely used for cooperative control of unmanned vehicles. A similar supervisory scheme has been applied on the rotorcraft test bed of UH60 Blackhawk Helicopter. Future work is to extend the idea in order to develop an artificial intelligence for R-UAVs that will be used in military operations.