In conclusion, a simple test for star-free events has been presented which determines whether a given regular event or finite automaton can be realized by a feedback-free cascade of set-reset flip-flops or not. A straight-forward method of obtaining the set of preserved covers of an automaton has also been presented. Finally and more importantly, a well defined construction of the feedback-free flip-flop realization of an automaton has been presented. As the construction is completely defined and covers all cases, it is hoped that it will be used by circuit designers, either manually or via a computer program. Although the examples given in this thesis use only a two letter alphabet, the construction method handles larger alphabets with the same ease. Some topics for further research are listed here:
