deterministic automaton

from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)

deterministic automaton

   <theory> A {finite-state automaton} in which the overall
   course of the computation is completely determined by the
   program, the starting state, and the initial inputs.  The
   class of problems solvable by such automata is the class P
   (see {polynomial-time algorithm}).

   (1996-05-03)