Abstract

Model checking based on Petri net unfoldings is an approach widely applied to cope with the state space explosion problem. In this paper we propose a new condensed representation of a Petri net behaviour called merged processes, which copes well not only with concurrency, but also with other sources of state space explosion, viz sequences of choices and non-safeness. Moreover, this representation is sufficiently similar to the traditional unfoldings, so that a large body of results developed for the latter can be re-used. Experimental results indicate that the proposed representation of a Petri net behaviour alleviates the state space explosion problem to a significant degree and is suitable for model checking.

Keywords

Merged processes, Petri net unravelling, Petri net unfolding, state space explosion, model checking, formal verification