Synthesis of controllers of processes modeled as colored Petri nets

This paper presents an adaptation of a supervisory control theory and a sup ervisor synthesis problem to a class of colored Petri nets. More specifical ly, the forbidden state control problem with full observation, in which a d iscrete-event system is modeled as a colored Petri net with a symmetry spec ification, is investigated. This problem is decidable if the colored Petri net has finite color sets and bounded places. A new algorithm for deriving a controller is presented in detail with a proof of correctness. Unlike con ventional algorithms that explore the entire reachable set of states, our a lgorithm avoids an exhaustive search of the state space by exploiting a sym metry specification. It performs particularly well when applied to large bu t structured processes with similar components. Furthermore, this approach leads to a representation of controllers which are smaller than those obtai ned with automaton-based approaches.