A4 - Modeling of Autonomous Logistic Processes with Rule-based Graph Transformation

Motivation

As in software engineering as well as in other areas of computer science, diagrams and graphs are also used in manifold ways for modeling logistic processes, easily describing and visualizing complex structures. Rule-based methods have proven extremely effective for capturing dynamic aspects like process and system flow. This inspires the attempt to employ rule-based graph transformation for modeling logistic processes and systems. Since the so-called graph transformation units in particular include a control component, they are an obvious choice for the description autonomous logistic processes.

Results Phase 1 (2004-2007)

First decisive steps to achieving this goal have already been taken. At the core lies the concept of autonomous graph transformation units, which, while interacting independently within a common environment, complete various tasks, both on their own and collaboratively. The operational semantics is defined on three levels with increasing complexity: at the first level, the semantics is purely sequential and allows only one action per step, at the second level, arbitrarily many units can apply any number of their rules in parallel, and at the top level, the semantics is truly concurrent, so that the sequence of events can only be discerned when a causal dependency exists. To test the applicability of this concept, various case studies have been performed,...