Verification of distributed systems modelled by high-level Petri nets

Abstract

A tool PNV (Petri net verifier) designed for analysis, modelling and verification of coloured Petri nets (CPN) is presented in the paper. The tool consists of two main components: a translator which generates an internal form of CPN and a C++ program modelling the input CPN, and a model-checking component which is applied to CPN limited by finite state systems when properties are presented in mu-calculus. Moreover, the translator generates a program in Pascal extended by a nondeterministic construct in order to model and verify the input CPN. The model-checking component uses the internal form of CPN and includes a model constructor which generates the reachability graph of CPN, and a model-checker. The paper describes a model-checking experiment with CPN which models the ring communication protocol (Cohen and Segall, 1991). An ineffectiveness of the ring protocol is proven by the experiment, and a modified effective ring protocol is verified too.