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An automaton (/ ɔː ˈ t ɒ m ə t ən / ⓘ; pl.: automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions. [1]
Automata theory was initially considered a branch of mathematical systems theory, studying the behavior of discrete-parameter systems. Early work in automata theory differed from previous work on systems by using abstract algebra to describe information systems rather than differential calculus to describe material systems. [2]
A finite-state machine (FSM) or finite-state automaton (FSA, plural: automata), finite automaton, or simply a state machine, is a mathematical model of computation.It is an abstract machine that can be in exactly one of a finite number of states at any given time.
Automata theory is the study of abstract machines (or more appropriately, abstract 'mathematical' machines or systems) and the computational problems that can be solved using these machines. These abstract machines are called automata. Automata comes from the Greek word (Αυτόματα) which means that something is doing something by itself.
A special class of cellular automata are totalistic cellular automata. The state of each cell in a totalistic cellular automaton is represented by a number (usually an integer value drawn from a finite set), and the value of a cell at time t depends only on the sum of the values of the cells in its neighborhood (possibly including the cell ...
Automata-based programming is a programming paradigm in which the program or part of it is thought of as a model of a finite-state machine (FSM) or any other (often more complicated) formal automaton (see automata theory). Sometimes a potentially infinite set of possible states is introduced, and such a set can have a complicated structure, not ...
An example of a deterministic finite automaton that accepts only binary numbers that are multiples of 3. The state S 0 is both the start state and an accept state. For example, the string "1001" leads to the state sequence S 0, S 1, S 2, S 1, S 0, and is hence accepted.
One method used to study these automata is to follow its history with an initial state of all 0s except for a single cell with a 1. When the rule number is even (so that an input of 000 does not compute to a 1) it makes sense to interpret state at each time, t, as an integer expressed in binary, producing a sequence a(t) of integers.