Minimal Coverability Set for Petri Nets: Karp and Miller Algorithm with Pruning

Pierre-Alain Reynier (1) , Frédéric Servais (2)

1 LIF - Laboratoire d'informatique Fondamentale de Marseille - UMR 6166
2 ULB - Département d'Informatique [Bruxelles]

This paper presents the Monotone-Pruning algorithm (MP) for computing the minimal coverability set of Petri nets. The original Karp and Miller algorithm (K&M) unfolds the reachability graph of a Petri net and uses acceleration on branches to ensure termination. The MP algorithm improves the K&M algorithm by adding pruning between branches of the K&M tree. This idea was first introduced in the Minimal Coverability Tree algorithm (MCT), however it was recently shown to be incomplete. The MP algorithm can be viewed as the MCT algorithm with a slightly more aggressive pruning strategy which ensures completeness. Experimental results show that this algorithm is a strong improvement over the K&M algorithm as it dramatically reduces the exploration tree.

Mots clés: Petri nets; Coverability

Domaines: Logique en informatique [cs.LO]

Pierre-Alain Reynier, Frédéric Servais. Minimal Coverability Set for Petri Nets: Karp and Miller Algorithm with Pruning. 2011. ⟨hal-00554919⟩