High speed programmable controller for hierarchical structured Petri nets

We propose a programmable controller for processing hierarchical structured Petri nets quickly for factory automation systems. System speed is raised by replacing a computer which controls Petri nets with a fast Petri net controller (PNC) by treating a computer and other objects as the same. Each object is described independently, and a system is constructed by connecting them by safe Petri nets which can be processed by the PNC. But the PNC which we have proposed before is not enough to speed up a system and control hierarchical structured Petri nets. We improve it by pipelining and masking transitions, and fixing interfaces. The improved PNC can process Petri nets about 2.5 times faster than before, and assuming a Petri net consists of 512 places and 512 transitions, it takes about 787 kbit memories and 83200 gates, and can be easily put on one chip.