Modeling and simulation by hybrid Petri nets

Petri nets (PNs) are widely used to model discrete event dynamic systems (computer systems, manufacturing systems, communication systems, etc). Continuous Petri nets (in which the markings are real numbers and the transition firings are continuous processes) were defined more recently; such a PN may model a continuous system (biological systems, fluid systems, etc). or approximate a discrete system (manufacturing systems, transport systems, etc). A paper presents the main ideas origin of the definition of this model. Different timings can be associated with discrete transitions leading to different derived models. When the maximal firing speeds associated with continuous transitions hybrid Petri net is obtained if one of its parts is discrete and the other part is continuous. This are constant, an elegant model is obtained allowing fast simulations.