Reduction method for reachability analysis of Petri nets

Reachability analysis is an important approach for acquiring Petri net (PN) properties. The reachability tree and the solution of the state equation are two commonly used methods for reachability analysis. but they can result in state explosion and spurious solutions in some cases. As a significant complementary method. the PN reduction technique simplifies the reachability analysis by reducing the net size while preserving the reachability. This paper introduces several useful reduction rules and defines a reduction process for the analysis of reachability which is easy to understand and implement. Some examples are given to explain the method to solve the reachabillty problem. The analysis shows that the proposed reduction method preserves the visualization feature of PN and can be easily used.