A Graphical Environment for Petri Nets INA Tool Based on Meta-Modelling and Graph Grammars

Authors: Raida El Mansouri, Elhillali Kerkouche, Allaoua Chaoui

Abstract:

The Petri net tool INA is a well known tool by the Petri net community. However, it lacks a graphical environment to cerate and analyse INA models. Building a modelling tool for the design and analysis from scratch (for INA tool for example) is generally a prohibitive task. Meta-Modelling approach is useful to deal with such problems since it allows the modelling of the formalisms themselves. In this paper, we propose an approach based on the combined use of Meta-modelling and Graph Grammars to automatically generate a visual modelling tool for INA for analysis purposes. In our approach, the UML Class diagram formalism is used to define a meta-model of INA models. The meta-modelling tool ATOM3 is used to generate a visual modelling tool according to the proposed INA meta-model. We have also proposed a graph grammar to automatically generate INA description of the graphically specified Petri net models. This allows the user to avoid the errors when this description is done manually. Then the INA tool is used to perform the simulation and the analysis of the resulted INA description. Our environment is illustrated through an example.

Keywords: INA, Meta-modelling, Graph Grammars, AToM3, Automatic Code Generation.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1074811

References:

[1] AGG Home page: http://tfs.cs.tu-berlin.de/agg/
[2] Home page: http://atom3.cs.mcgill.ca/
[3] Bardohl, R., H. Ehrig, J. De Lara and G. Taentzer (2004). "Integrating Meta Modelling with Graph Transformation for Efficient Visual Language Definition and Model Manipulation". Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2984, pp.: 214-228.
[4] Borland, S., Vangheluwe, H (2003): Transforming Statecharts to DEVS. A. Bruzzone and Mhamed Itmi, editors, Summer Computer Simulation Conference, Student Workshop, pp. S154-- S159, Society for Computer Simulation International (SCS), Montréal, Canada ( 2003).
[5] De Lara, J., Vangheluwe, H (2002): AToM3: A Tool for Multi- Formalism Modelling and Meta-Modelling. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2306, pp.174--188. Presented also at Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering - FASE'02 , in European Joint Conferences on Theory And Practice of Software - ETAPS'02, Grenoble, France(2002).
[6] De Lara, J., Vangheluwe, H.(2002): Computer aided multi-paradigm modelling to process petri-nets and statecharts. In International Conference on Graph Transformations (ICGT), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 2505, pp. 239--253, Springer-Verlag, Barcelona, Spain(2002).
[7] De Lara, J., Vangheluwe, H. (2002): Using meta-modelling and graph grammars to process GPSS models. Hermann Meuth, editor, 16th European Simulation Multi-conference (ESM), pp. 100--107, Society for Computer Simulation International (SCS), Darmstadt, Germany (2002).
[8] De Lara, J and H. Vangheluwe (2004). "Meta-Modelling and Graph Grammars for Multi-Paradigm Modelling in AToM3". Manuel Alfonseca. Software and Systems Modelling, Vol 3(3), pp.: 194-209. Springer-Verlag. Special Section on Graph Transformations and Visual Modeling Techniques.
[9] De Lara, J., Vangheluwe, H. (2005): Model-Based Development: Meta- Modelling, Transformation and Verification, The Idea Group Inc, pp. 17 (2005)
[10] DOME (1999). Home page: http://www.htc.honeywell.com/dome/
[11] Python home page: htpp://www.python.org
[12] Roch S. and Starke P.H. (2002). Integrated Net Analyze, User manual, 2002.
[13] "Handbook of Graph Grammars and Computing by Graph Transformation". Vol.1 World Scientific.