A review of synthesis techniques for Petri nets

Research results regarding synthesis techniques for Petri nets are reviewed. These methods can be adopted for modeling parallel and distributed application environments such as automated manufacturing systems to provide a solution for handling complex and concurrent interactions. Significant synthesis techniques, which are basically classified into bottom-up and top-down methods, are discussed. Bottom-up techniques, consisting of merging of places and sharing of simple elementary paths, have the advantage of ease of system description since the modeled subsystems usually have real-life correspondences. Nevertheless, with existing techniques the synthesized system may not exhibit the same control properties as the subsystems. Top-down methods, including refinement of transitions and refinement of places, have the advantage of viewing the system globally, which may generate more structured designs. However, it is difficult to apply these methods to environments with highly shared resources. Automated manufacturing system examples are given to demonstrate the applications of the methods