MAXIMIZING IMPACT OF AUTOMATION ON MODELING AND DESIGN Arno

Modeling engineering systems requires creativity and ingenuity , and therefore involves steps that are hardly suitable for automation. However, these steps are complemented by a multitude of routine tasks. Automation of these routine tasks, if tailored to complement non-automated tasks, allows the modeler to focus on the creative and innovative aspects of modeling and design. To this end, three important principles for automated modeling have been formulated and incorporated in the MAX (Modeling and Analysis eXpert) system: – The polymorphic modeling concept provides hierarchical models, in which each subsystem consists of a type, defining essential properties, and a specification, defining incidental properties. Subsystem types can be organized hierarchically in a library, and each type can have multiple specifications. – Information about a model is processed using multiple formulations. Different formulations of one model can be used simultaneously. The task at hand determines which formulation is appropriate for inspection and manipulation. – By embedding equations in networks in an intuitively appealing way, MAX provides the same kind of support for network models and equation models. The utility of these concepts is demonstrated in a case study involving a fourth order servo system. 1 INTRODUCTION Products that were traditionally purely mechanical are becoming more and more 'intelligent', and yet their cost does not increase as much as their performance. The recent development of a design attitude known as mechatronics is an important factor in this trend. The combined application of new developments in control engineering, electronics, computer science and other disciplines leads to improved performance for a wide spectrum of products ranging from durable equipment like assembly machines and automatic guided vehicles to consumer products like CD-players and video cameras. The 'added value' does not originate in the mere fact that the systems become multidisciplinary. The power of mechatronics is not so much in the decomposition of a system into single-discipline subsystems, but rather in the emphasis on the interdependence between the subsystems. Functional interaction and spatial integration are exploited to obtain systems that are 'more' (in terms of performance and quality) than the sum of their subsystems (Buur, 1990). Communication about the system under design, or more precisely , about models thereof, is used to realize the cooperation between designers, and to coordinate their work (Buur and Andreasen, 1989). An obstacle in the communication is that the members of a mechatronic design team do not share a common 'language', because they …