Framework for modeling and analysis of distributed problem-solving systems

摘要

Petri nets have the basic concepts necessary to model distributed systems with asynchronous processes. Petri nets are not directly applicable to certain kinds of systems like distributed intelligent systems (DISs). These are complex systems where multiple intelligent agents cooperate through communication to achieve the solution to a problem. The paper identifies the limitations of ordinary Petri nets for modeling DISs and proposes extensions. The extended Petri net incorporates colored tokens, inhibition arcs, non-primitive places and transitions, multiple copies of tokens and cumulative places. It is called a distributed problem-solving Petri net. The definitions and analysis techniques are given and illustrated by means of an example.