arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Owen Stephens.
We introduce a novel technique for checking reachability in Petri nets that relies on a recently introduced compositional algebra of nets. We prove that the technique is correct, and discuss our implementation. We report promising experimental results on some well-known examples.
In recent work, the second and third authors introduced a technique for reachability checking in 1-bounded Petri nets, based on wiring decompositions, which are expressions in a fragment of the compositional algebra of nets with boundaries. Here we extend the technique to the full algebra and introduce the related structural property of decomposition width on directed hypergraphs. Small decomposition width is necessary for the applicability of the reachability checking algorithm. We give examples of families of nets with constant decomposition width and develop the underlying theory of decompositions.