Coloured Petri Nets: A High Level Language for System Design and Analysis

Abstract

This paper describes how Coloured Petri Nets (CP-nets) have been developed - from being a promising theoretical model to being a full-fledged language for the design, specification, simulation, validation and implementation of large software systems (and other systems in which human beings and/or computers communicate by means of some more or less formal rules). First CP-nets are introduced by means of a small example and a formal definition of their structure and behaviour is presented. Then we describe how to extend CP-nets by a set of hierarchy constructs (allowing a hierarchical CP-net to consist of many different subnets, which are related to each other in a formal way). Next we describe how to analyse CP-nets, how to support them by various computer tools, and we also describe some typical applications. Finally, a number of future extensions are discussed (of the net model and the supporting software).