Nondeterministic Moore automata and Brzozowski's minimization algorithm

Abstract

Moore automata represent a model that has many applications. In this paper we define a notion of coherent nondeterministic Moore automaton (NMA) and show that such a model has the same computational power of the classical deterministic Moore automaton. We consider also the problem of constructing the minimal deterministic Moore automaton equivalent to a given NMA. We propose an algorithm that is a variant of Brzozowski’s minimization algorithm in the sense that it is essentially structured as reverse operation and subset construction performed twice. Moreover, we explore more general classes of NMA and analyze the applicability of the algorithm. For some of such classes the algorithm does not return the minimal equivalent deterministic automaton.