Basic concepts, analysis methods, and practical use

This book presents a coherent description of the theoreticaland practical aspects of coloured Petri nets (CP-nets). Itshows how CP-nets have been developed, from being apromising theoretical model to being a full-fledged languagefor the design, specification, simulation, validation andimplementation of large software systems. The book containsthe formal definition of CP-nets and the mathematical theorybehind their analysis methods. The book is also intended toattract readers who are more interested in applications thanin the underlying mathematics, and a large part of the bookis written in a style which is closer to an engineeringtextbook or a user manual than a typical textbook intheoretical computer science. The book consists of threeseparate volumes. The first volume defines the net model andthe basic concepts. It gives a detailed presentation of manysmall examples and a brief overview ofsome industrialapplications. It introduces the formal analysis methods.Finally, it contains a description of a set of CP-net toolswhich support the practical use of CP-nets. Most of thematerial in this volume is application oriented. Its purposeis to teach the reader how to construct CP-net models andanalyse them by means of simulation.