3. Colored Petri nets

In many cases, the power of generalized Petri nets is sufficient to meet the needs of automation engineers. The conciseness of the models obtained enables them to be implemented on a computer for analysis, simulation or even control purposes.

However, systems designed and operated today are increasingly reaching a level of complexity, expressed in terms of the amount of information to be processed, that can no longer be satisfied by generalized Petri nets. The example of flexible workshops, in which the diversity of machines, parts and tools has to be taken into account, illustrates this point. Models are no longer concise enough. What's more, they have to be redefined each time a modification is made to the system under study; they are not generalized.

One of these extensions, known as colored Petri nets, now meets the two constraints we...