Iterative disaggregation for a class of lumpable discrete-time stochastic automata networks

Stochastic automata networks (SANs) have been developed and used in the last 15 years as a modeling formalism for large systems that can be decomposed into loosely connected components. In this work, we concentrate on the not so much emphasized discrete-time SANs. First, we remodel and extend an SAN that arises in wireless communications. Second, for an SAN with functional transitions, we derive conditions for a special case of ordinary lumpability in which aggregation is done automaton by automaton. Finally, for this class of lumpable discrete-time SANs we devise an efficient aggregation-iterative disaggregation algorithm and demonstrate its performance on the SAN model of interest. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.