Algebraically structured colored Petri nets to model sequential processes

Sequential processes can hardly be modeled with Colored Petri Nets (CPN). Their standard functions (such as “Succ” and “Prec”) can only describe simple cases whereas modeling a complex sequence requires the definition of a function via a cumbersome and static table. In order to overcome these limitations, we first introduce a mixed structure based upon CPN and FIFO queues; then, we define an isomorphism between the set of colors and a finite field Z /pZ enabling symbolic calculation using polynomials associated with arcs instead of linear functions mapping sets into sets. Finally, several examples illustrate their modeling capabilities including failure recovery