From high-level Petri nets to SystemC

The paper introduces an approach for realizing high-level Petri net-models in SystemC. The presented approach contributes to an existing methodology for the Petri net-based design of distributed embedded real-time systems. It is intended to be a vehicle for realizing Petri net-components in hardware. The paper describes the use of standard SystemC language constructs to realize the firing of a high-level Petri net, which is assumed to be separated into partitions. The execution includes for instance the execution of single transitions, the handling of conflicting transitions, the realization of transition delays and the communication between Petri net-components realized in different partitions. Besides techniques for realizing these mechanisms, the integration of the code generation into the overall design flow is discussed.