Research and De­velop­ment of
Reactive Systems

Bigraphs provide an algebraic and visual framework for modeling what is where and how it interacts. The Bigraph Toolkit Suite (BTS) builds on this foundation to offer an extensible software environment for designing, simulating, and verifying abstract reactive systems, spanning IoT, cyber-physical systems, smart spaces, and beyond. Within BTS, bigraphs serve as a universal metamodel, enabling interoperability and composition across heterogeneous models of the world.

Explore Toolkit Components Go to GitHub

Reactive Systems — For Software Developers

Reactive systems are everywhere: a simple while(true) in a program, game engines responding to input, control circuits regulating temperature, neural networks adjusting to stimuli, or ecosystems balancing through feedback.

BTS provides a general-purpose software environment to use this universal pattern, capturing what a system does, and how it reacts and evolves over time and across contexts, guided by three pragmatic software engineering principles:

  • Metamodeling – BTS defines a family of metamodels to ensure structural consistency, from high-level concepts to low-level execution details.
  • Interoperability – BTS supports rich toolchains and model exchange between many formats and frameworks.
  • Verification – BTS supports mathematical reasoning about parallel, reactive systems, enabling analysis of behaviors, safety properties, and optimizations.

Explore the Bi­graphical Tool­kit Suite

BTS, i.e., any of its constituents listed below, is licensed according to the terms of the Apache License, Version 2.0.

Visit the whole Bigraph Toolkit Suite at GitHub

Bigraph Framework

Bigraph MetaModel

Spring Data CDO

BiGGer

Bigellor

BDSL Grammar

BDSL Interpreter Framework

BDSL Interpreter CLI

CDO for Docker

Learn

Project Template

Starter template (Gradle/Maven) to jumpstart Bigraph Framework projects.

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Getting Started

Using Bigraph Framework to learn the core concepts behind it.


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Tutorials

Hands-on Java tutorials for the Bigraph Framework.


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Bigraph Vending Machine (Java)

Java implementation of a bigraph-driven vending machine.

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Bigraph Vending Machine (Slides)

Explanatory slide set of the bigraphical vending machine.

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BiGGer (Slides)

Accompanying slide set explaining how to simulate bigraphs using GrGen.NET with the BiGGer tool.

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BDSL (User Manual)

The user manual of a bigraphical domain-specific language.


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Different Paths, One Goal

BTS unifies diverse modeling and programming approaches through a single, shared metamodel. This common foundation ensures seamless interoperability, no matter which approach is chosen.

  • Uniform XMI Representation – All bigraph instances use the XMI standard for XML-based metadata exchange, ensuring seamless interoperability across every API.
  • Intuitive Visual Modeling – Interactive tools make creating and editing bigraphs more accessible.
  • Powerful Java API – The Bigraph Framework delivers more flexibility through a programmatic interface.

Combine

BTS APIs span multiple levels of abstraction for building bigraphical models and programs, which are fully interoperable. Applications are never locked into a single abstraction: multiple abstractions can be seamlessly combined.

"Both the kind and granularity of a problem suggest the tools to best work with in order to solve the problem."