Automata

In computer science, automatahelp us to understand various things, such as the underlying processes of complex systems, by presenting us with a much simpler but abstract representation of states and transitions . This can be either a graph structure (left) or a transition table (right). By tracing the connections between the states, we can traverse the automaton. A sequence of transitions can be described as a word , and all possible words form a language. We know from experience that all languages use an alphabet, and this is no different here. The alphabet consists of all characters that represent a transition in the automaton. After all, every automaton has an initial state (q0) and a final state (q2). If a word causes an automaton to end in its final state, we know that the word is part of the accepted language.

Turn to page 2
graph view of an automatontable view of an automaton

Task:

The widget below provides you with tools to create and simulate different types of automata. For now, we will focus on the following transition table:

δabc
q1q2q2q3
q2q1q3q2
q3q3q2q3
Try to create the corresponding diagram using the widget. Click on the question mark to get help with this. Then use the simulation mode to test the accepted words.

Select a word from the accepted language of the machine.

aaa

bcc

bba

cba

Thank you for testing the Explorable!