Fluidization, Controllability and Control of Timed continuous Petri Nets

A large amount of results can be found in the literature regarding the analysis of discrete event systems by using different models from the Petri net (PN) paradigm. Applications involve the analysis of communication protocols and manufacturing systems, the implementation of sequence controllers, validation in software development, communication networks, supply chains, etc. This dissertation focus on the study of timed continuous Petri nets (TCPN) under infinite server semantics (also known as variable speed continuous PNs), which have been introduced as a potential approximation of the Markovian timing interpretation of discrete Petri nets. Firstly, it is studied the approximation that this model provides to the average behavior of stochastic (discrete) PNs. Later, it is studied the connection between liveness, boundedness and the timing in TCPNs. Next, the controllability of these systems is analyzed, and three different control law structures are proposed. Finally, the implementation of these controllers, into the original discrete PN models, is illustrated.