Author(s)

Julia Padberg^*, Kathrin Hoffmann

Hamburg University of Applied Science, Hamburg, Germany.

Software systems are increasingly executed in dynamic infrastructures. These infrastructures are dynamic as they are themselves subject to change as they support various applications that may or may not share some of the resources. Dynamic software systems become more and more important, but are difficult to handle. Modeling and simulating dynamic systems requires the representation of their processes and the system changes within one model. To that effect, reconfigurable Petri nets consist of a Petri net and a set of rules that can modify the Petri net. Their main feature is the capability to model complex coordination behavior in dynamically adapting infrastructures. The interplay of both levels of dynamic behavior requires a very precise description, so the specification when and which rules are to be applied plays a crucial role for the convenient use of reconfigurable nets. We differentiate several types of reconfigurable Petri nets and present a survey of control structure for these types, reconfigurable Petri nets. These control structures either concern the infrastructure, i.e., the rules and transformations or the system part, i.e., the firing behavior, or both. They are introduced by a short characterization and illustrated by examples. We state the results for various Petri net types and the tools supporting the different control structures.

Reconfigurable Petri Nets, Net Transformation, Control Structures, Model Transformation, Dynamic Software Systems

Padberg, J. and Hoffmann, K. (2015) A Survey of Control Structures for Reconfigurable Petri Nets. Journal of Computer and Communications, 3, 20-28. doi: 10.4236/jcc.2015.32002.