Concurrency in Communicating Object Petri Nets

Abstract

Objects are studied as higher-level net tokens having an individual dynamical behaviour. In the context of Petri net research it i s quite natural to also model such tokens by Petri nets. To distinguish them from the system net, they are called object nets. Object nets behave like tokens, i.e., they are lying in places and are moved by transitions. In contrast to ordinary tokens, however, they may change their state (i.e. their marking) when lying in a place or when being moved by a transition. By this approach an interesting and challenging two-level system modelling technique is introduced. Similar to the object-oriented approach, complex systems are modelled close to their real appearance in a natural way to promote clear and reliable concepts. Applications in fields like workflow, agent-oriented approaches (mobile agents and/or intelligent agents as in AI research) or open system networks are feasible. This paper gives a precise definition of the basic model together with a suitable process semantics. The focus is set more on basic concepts and their fundamental study than on high modelling capability.