An O(n2) Algorithm for Constructing Minimal Cover Automata for Finite Languages

Cover automata were introduced in [1] as an efficient representation of finite languages. In [1], an algorithm was given to transform a DFA that accepts a finite language to a minimal deterministic finite cover automaton (DFCA) with the time complexity O(n4), where n is the number of states of the given DFA. In this paper, we introduce a new efficient transformation algorithm with the time complexity O(n2), which is a significant improvement from the previous algorithm.