Chapter 10: Interoperability

Title: Improving interoperability in mechatronic product development

Author(s): Alain Biahmou, Arnulf Fröhlich, Josip Stjepandic

Address: PROSTEP AG, Dolivostr. 11, 64293, Darmstadt, Germany | PROSTEP AG, Dolivostr. 11, 64293, Darmstadt, Germany | PROSTEP AG, Dolivostr. 11, 64293, Darmstadt, Germany

Reference: International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management 2010 pp. 510 - 521

Abstract/Summary: The development of mechatronic systems involves many disciplines, which utilise their own specific methods, processes as well as software tools in order to create partial models of an overall system. A very strong collaboration of the disciplines is essential since all the partial models are interdependent. However, information between these engineering domains is exchanged only periodically. Furthermore, model services for instance for automatically updating the partial models that represent diverse views of the system are missing. Therefore, the data consistency that is required for an integrated product development is not ensured. PROSTEP AG, as a provider of advanced integration solutions, develops methods, processes as well as software to improve collaborative work. The focus of this paper lies on a sample project in which model services have been developed in order to map and align the models used in key processes of the different disciplines involved in the development of mechatronic products. Suitable and integrative abstraction forms are analysed in order to build mappings between multi-skill engineering domains and views. An approach is developed for the automatic generation of behaviour models out of geometrical models. The developed concepts are applied for implementing the CAMAT (CATIA-MATLAB-Translator) for generating MATLAB/SIMULINK models out of CATIA models as well as an interoperability platform.

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