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Distributed simulation of modular time Petri nets: An approach and a case study exploiting temporal uncertainty

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Abstract

This paper proposes an approach to modular modelling and simulation of complex time-critical systems. The modelling language is represented by Merlin and Farber’s Time Petri Nets (TPNs) augmented with inhibitor arcs and modular constructs borrowed from the Petri Net Markup Language (PNML) interchange format. Analysis techniques depend on Temporal Uncertainty Time Warp (TUTW), a time warp algorithm capable of exploiting temporal uncertainty in general optimistic simulations over a networked context. A key feature of the approach is the fact that TPN models naturally exhibit a certain degree of temporal uncertainty which the TUTW control engine can exploit to achieve good speedup without a loss in the accuracy of the simulation results. The developed TUTW/TPN kernel is demonstrated by modelling and simulation of a real-time system example.

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Correspondence to Franco Cicirelli.

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A preliminary version of this paper was presented at 38th SCS Annual Simulation Symposium, April 4–6, 2005, San Diego (CA), IEEE Computer Society, pp. 233–240.

Franco Cicirelli achieved a PhD in computer science from the University of Calabria (Unical), DEIS—department of electronics informatics and systems science. As a postdoc, he is making research on agent and service paradigms for the development of distributed systems, parallel simulation, Petri nets, distributed measurement systems. He holds a membership with ACM.

Angelo Furfaro, PhD, is a computer science assistant professor at Unical, DEIS, teaching object-oriented programming. His research interests are centred on: multi-agent systems, modeling and analysis of time-dependent systems, Petri nets, parallel simulation, verification of real-time systems, distributed measurement systems. He is a member of ACM.

Libero Nigro is a full professor of computer science at Unical, DEIS, where he teaches object-oriented programming, software engineering and real-time systems courses. He directs the Software Engineering Laboratory (www.lis.deis.unical.it). His current research interests include: software engineering of time-dependent and distributed systems, real-time systems, Petri nets, modeling and parallel simulation of complex systems, distributed measurement systems. Prof. Nigro is a member of ACM and IEEE.

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Cicirelli, F., Furfaro, A. & Nigro, L. Distributed simulation of modular time Petri nets: An approach and a case study exploiting temporal uncertainty. Real-Time Syst 35, 153–179 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11241-006-9006-x

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