Transformation of Petri net Models by Matrix Operations

Abstract

Petri nets constitute a modeling paradigm able to describe discrete event systems characterized by features such as parallelism, precedence, concurrence, and synchronization. Petri nets are applied extensively and successfully for modeling systems belonging to a broad range of fields. In this context, transformation of Petri net models constitutes a process with diverse applications, such as simplifying the model for developing structural analysis or for performance evaluation, as well as comparing different models, describing nets whose structure changes over time, or merging models with exclusive entities. The transformation of the structure of a Petri net can be carried out from different points of view. In this paper, this transformation is developed by means of matrix operations. A list of matrix operations is presented and the preservation of some significant properties of the Petri net is discussed as a practical tool for transforming Petri net models by operations in the incidence matrices.