In: Proceedings of the second IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics (SMC'02), October 6-9, 2002, Hammamet, Tunisia, Volume 2. IEEE Computer Society Press, October 2002.
Abstract: Two different types of timed Petri nets that contain continuous tokens have been developed separately. Fluid stochastic Petri nets (FSPN) are stochastic Petri nets enhanced by continuous places. Continuous places can be filled from ordinary transitions, while the transitions are enabled by discrete places. Hybrid Petri nets (HPN) are stochastic Petri nets enhanced by continuous places and continuous transitions. both kinds of transitions can be enabled by both kinds of places, and both kinds of transitions can be connected by arcs to/from both kinds of places (of course with some restrictions). Each of the continuous Petri net formalisms provides interesting analysis methods, and both formalisms experienced a lot of extensions on modeling level after their first introduction. In this paper, we compare the modeling power of the basic versions and of some extensions of both formalisms. As result we show, that in general, FSPNs can be emulated with HPNs, and vice versa, however depending on the versions considered. Thus, there is no essential difference in both formalisms. A transformation of one type of net to the other one can be found, if for some reason (e.g., use of different analysis methods) the other formalism is to prefer.