A Categorical Semantics for Hierarchical Petri Nets

Paper abstract:

We show how a particular flavor of hierarchical nets can be modelled utilizing a functorial semantics from a free category. This semantics can be internalized via the Grothendieck construction, resulting in the category of executions of a Petri net representing the semantics of the overall hierarchical net. We conclude the paper by giving an engineering-oriented overview of how our model of hierarchic nets can be implemented in a transaction-based smart contract environment.