Compositional time Petri nets and reduction rules.

This paper introduces compositional time Petri net (CTPN) models. A CTPN is a modularized time Petri net (TPN), which is composed of components and connectors. The paper also proposes a set of component-level reduction rules for TPNs. Each of these reduction rules transforms a TPN component to a very simple one while maintaining the net's external observable timing properties. Consequently, the proposed method works at a coarse level rather than at an individual transition level. Therefore, one requires significantly fewer applications to reduce the size of the TPN under analysis than those existing ones for TPNs. The use and benefits of CTPNs and reduction rules are illustrated by modeling and analyzing the response time of a command and control system to its external arriving messages.