Synthesising elementary net systems with localities

In this paper, we investigate transition systems of a class of Petri nets suitable for the modelling and behavioural analysis of globally asynchronous locally synchronous systems. The considered model of Elementary Net Systems with Localities (ENL-systems) is basically that of Elementary Net Systems (EN-systems) equipped with an explicit notion of locality. Each locality identifies a distinct set of events which may only be executed synchronously, i.e., in a maximally concurrent manner. For this reason, the overall behaviour of an ENL-system cannot be represented by an interleaved transition system, with arcs being labelled by single events, but rather by a suitable notion of a step transition system, with arcs being labelled by sets of events executed concurrently.We completely characterise transition systems which can be generated by Elementary Net Systems with Localities under their intended concurrency semantics. In developing a suitable characterisation, we follow the standard approach in which key relationships between a Petri net and its transition system are established via the regions of the latter defined as specific sets of states of the transition system. We argue that this definition is insufficient for the class of transition systems of ENL-systems, and then augment the standard notion of a region with some additional information, leading to the notion of a region with explicit input and output events (or io-region).We define, and show consistency of, two behaviour preserving translations between ENL-systems and their transition systems. As a result, we provide a solution to the synthesis problem of Elementary Net Systems with Localities, which consists in constructing an ENL-system for a given transition system in such a way that the transition system of the former is isomorphic to the latter.KeywordsTheory of concurrencyPetri netselementary net systemslocalitiesanalysis and synthesisstep sequence semanticsstructure and behaviour of netstheory of regionstransition systems

When a Petri net is synthesised from a labelled transition system, it is frequently desirable that certain additional constraints are fulfilled. For example, in circuit design, one is often interested in constructing safe Petri nets. Targeting such subclasses of Petri nets is not necessarily computationally more efficient than targeting the whole class. For example, targeting safe nets is known to be NP-complete while targeting the full class of place/transition nets is polynomial, in the size of the transition system. In this paper, several classes of Petri nets are examined, and their suitability for being targeted through efficient synthesis from labelled transition systems is studied and assessed. The focus is on choice-free Petri nets and some of their subclasses. It is described how they can be synthesised efficiently from persistent transition systems, summarising and streamlining in tutorial style some of the authors’ and their groups’ work over the past few years.

Artificial neural networks (ANN's) are highly parallel and distributed computational structures that can learn from experience and perform inferences. Petri nets, on the other hand, provide an effective modeling framework for distributed systems. The basic concepts of Petri net are utilized to develop ANN-like multilayered Petri net architectures of distributed intelligence having learning ability. A Petri net model of single neuron is presented. A two-layer Petri net model-neural Petri net (NPN)-that uses this neuron model as a building block is described. A new class of Petri nets called the fuzzy neural Petri net (FNPN) is defined. The FNPN can be used for representing a fuzzy knowledge base and for fuzzy reasoning. Some application examples for the two Petri net based models are given. >

Variable binding operators in transition system specifications

Petri nets are known to be useful for modeling concurrent systems. Once modeled by a Petri net, the behavior of a concurrent system can be characterized by the set of all executable transition sequences, which in turn can be viewed as a language over an alphabet of symbols corresponding to the transitions of the underlying Petri net. In this paper, we study the language issue of Petri nets from a computational complexity viewpoint. We analyze the complexity of theregularity problem(i.e., the problem of determining whether a given Petri net defines an irregular language or not) for a variety of classes of Petri nets, includingconflict-free,trap-circuit,normal,sinkless,extended trap-circuit,BPP, andgeneralPetri nets. (Extended trap-circuit Petri nets are trap-circuit Petri nets augmented with a specific type ofcircuits.) As it turns out, the complexities for these Petri net classes range from NL (nondeterministic logspace), PTIME (polynomial time), and NP (nondeterministic polynomial time), to EXPSPACE (exponential space). In the process of deriving the complexity results, we develop adecomposition approachwhich, we feel, is interesting in its own right, and might have other applications to the analysis of Petri nets as well. As a by-product, an NP upper bound of the reachability problem for the class of extended trap-circuit Petri nets (which properly contains that of trap-circuit (and hence, conflict-free) and BPP-nets, and is incomparable with that of normal and sinkless Petri nets) is derived.

The synthesis problem of concurrent systems is the problem of synthesizing a concurrent system model from sequential observations. The paper studies the synthesis problem for elementary Petri nets and transition systems. A characterization of the class of transition systems which correspond to elementary Petri nets is proven. It is shown how to generate all elementary Petri nets corresponding to a given transition system. If there is any such elementary Petri net, it is proven that there always exists a small one which has only polynomially many elements in the size of the transition system.

A behavior preserving relation between Petri-net systems is introduced in this paper, based on the observability of both places and transitions, which is important in modeling the dynamic behavior of concurrent object-oriented systems with Petri nets. Each group of closely related attributes of a concurrent object is modeled by the state of a collection of observable places, and each of its methods by a group of observable transitions. The grouping distinguishes the definition in this paper from others, which makes it easy to work together with the static object models, to reuse the models and to dispel the interference among groups, thus relieving the problem of inheritance anomaly by the possibility of dividing the synchronization code into independent parts. For a formal definition of this behavior subtyping relation, Elementary Net systems, with both S-elements and T-elements labeled, are used. Then it is extended informally to the state based coloured Petri net systems. Finally, the background of the definitions and the future work are presented.

We present two aspects of knitting technique, the structural properties (especially the P- and T-invariants), and the synchronized choice net (a new class of Petri net), that are of both theoretical importance and practical uses to the verification of structural correctness of a Petri net or to detect the structural problem of a Petri net. This work first proves that the ordinary Petri nets synthesized with knitting technique are structurally bounded, consistent, conservative and safe (when each home place holds one token) using the well-known linear algebra approach. It also provides a procedure for finding P- and T-invariants for Petri net synthesized using the knitting technique. We present examples for P-invariants and show that we can synthesize Petri nets more general than the "asymmetric-choice nets". The algorithm for finding P-invariants of ordinary Petri nets is extended to find the P-invariants for a general Petri net synthesized with knitting technique and the arc-ratio rules. We present a new class of Petri nets, called synchronized choice nets, which are the largest set of Petri nets that can be covered by both T-components and P-components. An algorithm is proposed to find its T-components and the P-components, respectively. The complexity of this algorithm is also presented. The theory of synchronized choice nets has the potential to simplify that for free choice nets.

Fuzzy Petri net (FPN) has been extensively applied in industrial fields for knowledge-based systems or systems with uncertainty. Although the applications of FPN are known to be successful, the theoretical research of FPN is still at an initial stage. To pave a way for further study, this work explores related dynamic properties of FPN including reachability, boundedness, safeness, liveness and fairness. The whole methodology is divided into two phases. In the first phase, a comparison between elementary net system (EN_system) and FPN is established to prove that the FPN is an extensive formalism of Petri nets using a backwards-compatible extension method. Next, current research results of dynamic properties are utilized to analyze FPN model. The results illustrate that FPN model is bounded, safe, weak live and fair, and can support theoretical evidences for designing related decomposition algorithm.

In the area of Petri nets, many different developments have taken place within the last 30 years, in academia as well as in practice. For an adequate use in practice, a coherent and application oriented combination of various types and techniques for Petri nets is necessary. In order to attain a formal basis for different classes of Petri nets we introduce the concept of abstract Petri nets. The essential point of abstract Petri nets is to allow different kinds of net structures as well as the combination of various kinds of data types. This means that in abstract Petri nets the data type and the net structure part can be considered as abstract parameters which can be instantiated to different concrete net classes. We show that several net classes, like place/transition nets, elementary nets, S-graphs, algebraic high-level nets, and predicate/transitions nets are instantiations of abstract Petri nets. Moreover, we discuss coloured Petri nets in this context.KeywordsPredicate LogicForgetful FunctorUniform ApproachSpeci CationSignature Morphism

Deadlock/livelock problems can cause catastrophic results in flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) by forcing them to stop production processes at an unpredictable stage of production. Therefore, they must be handled properly in order to obtain flawless production in FMS. Petri net (PN) based deadlock/livelock studies for FMS have been widely carried out to obtain live PN models. When a PN model is live, this ensures that the modelled FMS is deadlock-free. Firstly, an uncontrolled (plant) PN model is constructed for the FMS suffering from deadlocks/livelocks. Then reachability graph (RG) analysis of this PN model is carried out to provide all possible reachable states of the modelled system. An RG of a PN model of an FMS suffering from deadlock/livelock problems can be split into the live zone (LZ) and the deadlock zone (DZ). The former is the set of system states considered to be legal (good), while the latter is the set of system states regarded to be illegal (bad). The LZ represents the optimal (maximally permissive) system behavior that must be provided by an optimal control policy. Generally, in PN based liveness studies, a liveness enforcing supervisor (LES) consisting of a set of control places (CP) is computed. Then the controlled (closed-loop) PN model is obtained by merging the plant PN model and the LES. If the number of reachable live states of the controlled PN model is the same as the ones that exist in the LZ, then the controlled model is optimal. Otherwise, it is suboptimal. The greater the number of live reachable states of the RG, the more products to be produced within the FMS. Therefore, the number of reachable live states of the controlled PN model is considered as a quality measure. It defines the behavioral permissiveness of the controlled model. In the literature, to verify the behavioral permissiveness of the PN models, the PN tool called INA (Integrated Net Analyzer) has been widely used. Recently, by means of INA, a method was proposed to compute the number of states within the LZ and the DZ of a given PN model suffering from deadlocks/livelocks. Unfortunately, INA cannot compute RGs of large PNs having a few millions of states. Therefore, in this paper by means of TINA (TIme petri Net Analyzer), an alternative faster and much more efficient method is proposed for the computation of the number of states within the LZ and the DZ for PN models with large RGs. In addition, in order to enable the development of new PN based deadlock prevention methods, further computations are also proposed. These include the computation of the set of states in the DZ, LZ and first met bad markings (FBMs) for a given PN model suffering from deadlocks/livelocks. The applicability and the effectiveness of the proposed methods are demonstrated by considering several well-known examples of FMS from the relevant literature.INDEX TERMS Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), deadlock, deadlock prevention, Petri Nets (PN), liveness enforcing supervisor (LES), PN computation tools.

Adaptability of workflow models can be achieved if the specification module of the Workflow Management System (WMS) is based on a theoretical kernel, allowing minimal effort for the creation of a workflow model capable of providing, when necessary, any view (and the related services) the users may want of it. The specification module of the Milano WMS has been developed on the basis of the above assumption [2, 3], so that it supports the articulation of complex work processes. Milano [1] is a system integrating in the user workspace a WMS with a multimedia conversation handler, and, finally, an object repository where an organizational handbook is stored.The workflow models of Milano constitute a small subcategory of ENS (Elementary Net Systems), namely Free-Choice Acyclic ENS. Free-choice Acyclic ENS have some nice, efficiently computable, properties: there is a synthesis algorithm from Elementary Transition Systems (ETS) to ENS so that the user can have different views of the workflow; it is possible to compute and classify the jumps recovering exceptions; morphisms between models allow an efficient correctness check for changes and support on-the-fly enactment of changes. The formal aspects of the Milano WMS are described in [2, 3]. Figure 1 presents the Workflow Net Model (WNM) (in the state {b4, b9}) of the first part of a Credit Procedure.

Generic Petri net models of protocol mechanisms in communication systems

Pre-synthesis of Petri nets based on prime cycles and distance paths

With this contribution, we aim to draw a comprehensive classification of Petri nets with stopwatches w.r.t. expressiveness and decidability issues. This topic is too ambitious to be summarized in a single paper. That is why we present our results in two different parts. The scope of this first paper is to address the general results that apply for both dense-time and discrete-time semantics. We study the class of bounded Petri nets with stopwatches and reset arcs (rSwPNs), which is an extension of T-time Petri nets (TPNs) where time is associated with transitions. Stopwatches can be reset, stopped and started. We give the formal dense-time and discrete-time semantics of these models in terms of Transition Systems. We study the expressiveness of rSwPNs and its subclasses w.r.t. (weak) bisimilarity (behavioral semantics). The main results are following: 1) bounded rSw- PNs and 1-safe rSwPNs are equally expressive; 2) For all models, reset arcs add expressiveness. 3) The resulting partial classification of models is given by a set of relations explained in Fig. 7: in the forthcoming paper, we will complete these results by covering expressiveness and decidability issues when discrete-time nets are considered. For the sake of simplicity, our results are explained on a model such that the stopwatches behaviors are expressed using inhibitor arcs. Our conclusions can however be easily extended to the general class of Stopwatch Petri nets.