Petri nets

Petri Nets is a formal and graphical appealing language which is appropriate for modeling systems with concurrency. Petri net theory allows a system to be modeled by a Petri net, a mathematical representation of the system. Analysis of the Petri net can then, hopefully, reveal important information about the structure and dynamic behavior of the modeled system. This information can then be used to evaluate the modeled system and suggest improvements or changes. Thus, the development of a theory of Petri nets is based on the application of Petri nets in the modeling and design of systems.

The modeling is used in the application of Petri nets. By using model we represent the one that we modeled, because it is hard to manipulate the real itself, maybe because of the danger, cost or inconvenience. Mathematics is used in the modeling, the important features of many physical phenomena can be described numerically and the relations between these features described by equations or inequalities. Particularly in the natural sciences and engineering, properties such as mass, position, momentum, acceleration, and forces are describable by mathematical equations.

Petri Nets has been under development since the beginning of the sixties, where Carl Adam Petri defined the language. It was the first time a general theory for discrete parallel systems was formulated. The language is a generalization of automata theory such that the concept of concurrently occurring events can be expressed.