Scene Transition Net Simulation in a Distributed Environment

Scence Transition Net (STN) is a discrete/continuous hybrid system model which has been developed by one of the authors. In this paper, we attempt to develop a new simulation method of STNs in a distributed environment. For the purpose, we extend the definition of STN and propose the concept of a distributed net. The distributed nets communicate with each other in order to notify them of information about firing transitions. Furthermore, we point out that excessive communication overhead is required when multiple distributed nets decide if a transition fires. We show that restructuring these distributed nets avoid such situation. As an example of distributed STN simulation, we illustrate an integrated simulation of a manufacturing system which consists of 2 processing lines and transfer system in a distributed environment.