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Time Petri Nets: Theory, Tools and Applications

Bernard Berthomieu and Louchka Popova-Zeugmann




Time Petri nets (TPNs) extend Petri nets with temporal intervals associated with transitions. Since their introduction by Merlin in 1974, they are one of the prominent models proposed for the specification and verification of time dependent systems. Their ability to cope with a wide variety of modeling problems, as well as the availability of effective analysis methods certainly contributed to their widespread use. This advanced tutorial will review in a unified framework the essentials results about Time Petri nets. It will cover the classical results as well as recent state-of-the-art developments. Both theory and applications will be adressed. A relationship to other time-dependent modelling instruments - Timed automata, Timed Petri nets - will be examined.


Expected audience

This advanced tutorial is aimed at The attendees are expected to have a basic knowledge of Petri nets (places, transitions, firing game) as well as some notions of linear algebra and inequatoin systems.


Speakers


After a Doctoral degree obtained from the University of Toulouse III and post-doctoral positions at Information Science Institute (Marina del Rey) and the Bull Company, Bernard Berthomieu joined the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in 1982, at the Laboratoire d'Architecture et d'Analyse des Syst{\`e}mes (LAAS), Toulouse. He has studied specification and analysis techniques for concurrent and real-time systems for over 20 years, using various formal tools like Petri nets, Time Petri nets, Algebraic Data Types, and Process Calculi. He authored a number of methods and tools in these area and notably pioneered geometric analysis techniques for real-time systems, by proposing the so-called state class method for abstracting the behavior of Merlin's Time Petri nets. This work was first presented at the 3rd Europen Workshop on Petri Nets, Varenna, 1982. This analysis technique has been has since incorporated in a variety of tools and discussed and used in a number of works. He is currently involved in a number of projects in the area of verification of embedded systems.


Louchka Popova-Zeugmann studied physics and mathematics, receiving her M.A. in the latter. Her PhD and postdoctoral lecture qualification (Habilitation) were awarded in Computer Science at the Berlin Humboldt University. Between 1979 and 1986, while employed at the University of Economics in Berlin, optimization and modeling were the focus of her work. Thereafter, she transferred to the Humboldt University's department of Mathematics where she specialized in the optimization of electrical power plant production. In 1990, she transferred to the Department of Computer Science where she currently works as a researcher. Her interests include the design and analysis of time-dependent PNs and the design and modeling of time-sensitive systems. She created two methods for reducing the state space of Merlin's TPNs, as well as several algorithms for analyzing other time-dependent PNs like the ones that construct a time dependent state equation for Ramchandani's time-dependent PNs or those that translate time-dependent PNs into TPNs.




Contents


1. TPN: An introduction
   1.1. Basic notions,  equivalence to the Turing machine
   1.2. State space
      1.2.1. Parametric represantation
      1.2.2. Reduction: essential states
      1.2.3. Reachability graph
   1.3. Comparison: TPN and timeless PN with respect to the boundedness and the liveness
2. Timed Petri nets
   2.1. Short introduction, equivalence to the Turing machine, transformation into TPN
   2.2. Time-dependent state equation
   2.3. Timed Petri nets with variable time durations
3. An application: Evaluation of a biochemical network (cell division cycle: cdc2 and cyclin interactions) modelled with time-dependent Petri nets



Created: Fri Apr 4 17:39:08 MEST 2008
Louchka Popova-Zeugmann
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