Composition and Independence of High-Level Net Processes

Mobile ad-hoc networks (manets) are networks of mobile devices that communicate with each other via wireless links without relying on an underlying infrastructure. To model workflows in manets adequately a formal technique is given by algebraic higher-order nets. For this modeling technique we here present a high-level net process semantics and results concerning composition and independence. Based on the notion of processes for low-level Petri nets we analyse in this paper high-level net processes defining the non-sequential behaviour of high-level nets. In contrast to taking low-level processes of the well known flattening construction for high-level nets our concept of high-level net processes preserves the high-level structure. The main results are the composition, equivalence and independence of high-level net processes under suitable conditions. Independence means that they can be composed in any order leading to equivalent high-level net processes which especially have the same input/output behaviour. All concepts and results are explained with a running example of a mobile ad-hoc network in the area of a university campus.