Synthesis of Bounded Choice-Free Petri Nets

This paper describes a synthesis algorithm tailored to the construction of choice-free Petri nets from finite persistent transition systems. With this goal in mind, a minimised set of simplified systems of linear inequalities is distilled from a general region-theoretic approach, leading to algorithmic improvements as well as to a partial characterisation of the class of persistent transition systems that have a choice-free Petri net realisation

Simultaneous Petri Net Synthesis

Petri net synthesis deals with the problem whether, given a labelled transition system TS, one can find a Petri net N with an initial marking M0 such that the reachability graph of (N. M0) is isomorphic to TS. This may be preceded by a pre-synthesis phase that will quickly reject ill-formed transition systems (and give structural reasons for the failure) and otherwise build data structures needed by the proper synthesis. The last phase proceeds by solving systems of linear inequalities, and may still fail but for less transparent reasons. In this paper, we consider an extended problem. A finite set of transition systems {TS1, ...,TSm} shall be called simultaneously Petri net solvable if there is a single Petri net N with several initial markings {M01,...,M0m}, such that for every i = 1,...,m, the reachability graph of (N, M0i) is isomorphic to TSi. The focus will be on choice-free nets, that is, nets without structural choices, and we explore how previously published efficient algorithms for the pre-synthesis and proper synthesis of bounded and choice-free Petri nets can be generalised for the simultaneous pre-synthesis and synthesis of such multi-marked nets. At the same time, the choice-free pre-synthesis of a single transition system shall be strengthened by introducing new structural checks

Reduction and Synthesis of Live and Bounded Free Choice Petri Nets

AbstractThis paper provides reduction rules that make it possible to reduce all and only live and bounded Free Choice Petri nets to a circuit containing one place and one transition. The reduction algorithm is shown to require polynomial time in the size of the system. The reduction rules can be transformed into synthesis rules, which can be used for the stepwise construction of large systems

Analysis of Petri Nets and Transition Systems

This paper describes a stand-alone, no-frills tool supporting the analysis of (labelled) place/transition Petri nets and the synthesis of labelled transition systems into Petri nets. It is implemented as a collection of independent, dedicated algorithms which have been designed to operate modularly, portably, extensibly, and efficiently.Comment: In Proceedings ICE 2015, arXiv:1508.0459

Mining structured Petri nets for the visualization of process behavior

Visualization is essential for understanding the models obtained by process mining. Clear and efficient visual representations make the embedded information more accessible and analyzable. This work presents a novel approach for generating process models with structural properties that induce visually friendly layouts. Rather than generating a single model that captures all behaviors, a set of Petri net models is delivered, each one covering a subset of traces of the log. The models are mined by extracting slices of labelled transition systems with specific properties from the complete state space produced by the process logs. In most cases, few Petri nets are sufficient to cover a significant part of the behavior produced by the log.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

The complexity of Petri net transformations

Bibliography: pages 124-127.This study investigates the complexity of various reduction and synthesis Petri net transformations. Transformations that preserve liveness and boundedness are considered. Liveness and boundedness are possibly the two most important properties in the analysis of Petri nets. Unfortunately, although decidable, determining such properties is intractable in the general Petri net. The thesis shows that the complexity of these properties imposes limitations on the power of any reduction transformations to solve the problems of liveness and boundedness. Reduction transformations and synthesis transformations from the literature are analysed from an algorithmic point of view and their complexity established. Many problems regarding the applicability of the transformations are shown to be intractable. For reduction transformations this confirms the limitations of such transformations on the general Petri net. The thesis suggests that synthesis transformations may enjoy better success than reduction transformations, and because of problems establishing suitable goals, synthesis transformations are best suited to interactive environments. The complexity of complete reducibility, by reduction transformation, of certain classes of Petri nets, as proposed in the literature, is also investigated in this thesis. It is concluded that these transformations are tractable and that reduction transformation theory can provide insight into the analysis of liveness and boundedness problems, particularly in subclasses of Petri nets

Property-preserving subnet reductions for designing manufacturing systems with shared resources

AbstractThis paper handles two problems in manufacturing system design: resource sharing and system abstraction. In a manufacturing system, resources such as robots, machines, etc. are shared by several processes. When the resources are switched from one process to another, they may need some modifications such as cleaning oil, adding equipments and so on. Previous designing methods assume that the resources have no intermediate modifications. Hence, they need to be extended to handle such kinds of resource-sharing problems. As for abstraction, modeling operations with single places in manufacturing system design is very popular. From the viewpoint of verification, the objective is to verify whether the reduced model has the same desirable properties as the original one. This paper presents three kinds of property-preserving subnet reduction methods. For each reduction method, conditions are presented for ensuring that the properties liveness, boundedness and reversibility are preserved. Applications of these reduction methods to handling the above resource sharing and system abstraction problems are illustrated with an example from the manufacturing system