Extending the Modeling and Analysis Capabilities of Continuous Petri Nets by Flexible Nets

Continuous Petri nets aim to avoid the state explosion problem of classical discrete Petri nets by relaxing the integrality constraint of the firing of transitions. Although the resulting formalism can successfully model a number of features of dynamic systems, its use in complex real systems can be hindered by the limited number of possible dynamics and by the difficulty in accommodating uncertain parameters. The modeling formalism of Flexible Nets can overcome these difficulties by significantly extending the modeling and analysis possibilities of continuous Petri nets. The modeling capabilities of Flexible Nets will be presented together with their analysis possibilities in both the transient and steady state.