Control of Petri Nets by Finite Automata

Abstract

Petri nets are considered where the firings are controled by finite automata. The control may be distributed to different automata working over disjoint sets of transitions. To avoid deadlocks and conflicts for the whole system the distribution of control must be organized in an appropriate manner. The existance of deadlocks and conflicts is shown to be undecidable in general, but conflict resolving and deadlock free controls can be constructed for given nets.