A Suite of Petri net based Tools for Monitoring and Debugging Distributed Autonomous Systems

Abstract

This paper describes the use of Petri nets in a suit of tools to design, analyze, monitor, log and debug the run-time coordination of distributed control systems. The interaction between the distributed components is modeled using Petri nets. Before running the application, different Petri net analysis tools can be used to analyze the system. While running, interactions between the different components of the distributed system can be easily monitored watching the evolution of the different Petri nets. Besides monitoring, the system can be instrumented to log state changes with different levels of detail. Finally, graphical tools can be used for visualizing the evolution of the system step by step or at the same running pace. These tools allow also go to a specific point of the execution and visualize the state of the global system.

Keywords

• Petri Nets
• Run-Time Verification
• Debugging Distributed Systems
• Coordinating Distributed Systems