Modelling and Analysis of a DANFOSS Flowmeter System Using Coloured Petri Nets

Danfoss is a Danish manufacturer of refrigeration, motion, heating, and water controls. This paper describes the main results of a project on the modelling and analysis of a Danfoss flowmeter system using Coloured Petri Nets (CP-nets or CPNs). A modern flowmeter system consists of a number of communicating processes, cooperating to make various measurements on, e.g., the flow of water through a pipe. The purpose of the project was to investigate the application of CP-nets for validation of the communication protocols used in the flowmeter system. Analysis by means of state spaces successfully identified problems in the proposed communication protocols. An alternative design was analysed using state spaces reduced by taking advantage of the inherent symmetries in the system. Exploiting the symmetries made it possible to analyse configurations of the flowmeter system approaching the size of typical flowmeter systems.