presentstate
Present state is the current configuration of a system at a specific time. In mathematical modeling and engineering, it is the minimal set of variables needed to determine future behavior given inputs, without recourse to the full past history. The present state, together with future inputs, uniquely determines the system’s evolution, while the past is implicit in how the present state was arrived at.
Many formal models describe present state in different ways. In automata theory, a deterministic finite automaton
In continuous- or discrete-time control theory, the present state is captured by a state vector x, and
Often the true present state cannot be measured directly; estimators or observers reconstruct it from available
Practically, the concept applies to everyday mechanical systems, robotics, process control, and software simulations. Examples include
In programming, presentstate may be used as a variable name to store the current state of an