Harnessing Structure Theory of Petri Nets in Discrete Event System Simulation

Nowadays Discrete Event Systems (DESs) require complex and large models, for which distributed simulation engines become, in practice, the tools used to understand and analyze their behavior. The feasibility and efficiency of a distributed simulation of these large-scale models is strongly dependent of the information that can be obtained from the models, previously to the simulation process itself. This information can give assistance to the generation of an initial partition of the model, allowing a well balanced workload among the individual simulation engines deployed, or in the generation of the predicates to be evaluated in order to determine the enabling of transitions; or the computation of look-ahead information in conservative strategies of distributed simulation. Petri nets allow to obtain information from the structure that can be used to advance conclusions or properties about the course of a simulation. This information can be usefull either independently of the considered initial marking, or parameterised by its initial choice. This structural information can be obtained in modelling phase, completed in simulation time and re-elaborated from the simulation results, and therefore associated to the model or modules of the model in such a way that can be harnessed in further simulations where these nets will be used. Last but no least, the maintenance of the structure of the Petri net during the simulation (in an interpreted simulation instead of a compiled one) allows to make load balancing during the simulation or to federate with legacy simulators, in an easier way than using other kind of specification models or simulation schemes.