Hierarchical high level petri nets for complex system analysis

Abstract

The class of Hierarchical High Level Petri Nets (HHPNs) is introduced. HHPNs provide a framework for a modular specification of complex parallel and concurrent systems which supports top-down and bottom-up design. Apart from specification convenience HHPNs can be analysed very efficientlY according to functional aspects of the modelled system. Analysis is based on a divide and conquer approach combined with behaviour preserving reduction techniques on subsets of the reachability set. The complexity of an analysis on the reachability set of the net can often be reduced by several orders of a magnitude by considering only small parts of the complex reachability set in a single analysis step and performing behaviour preserving reductions before composing subsets of the reachability set.