Study on Product Design Framework for Enhancing Interaction of Model-Based Development and Prototyping

Abstract

The development of mechatronic systems requires integration of knowledge of various domains, such as mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and software engineering. A model-based development approach supports this problem. However, a designer builds models focusing on a particular aspect of the product, and consequently models have less information than the real product. Failure of the product happens due to such lack of information. Therefore, it is important to validate the solution by prototyping. This paper proposes a design support framework for mechatronic systems which integrates a model-based development with prototyping and focuses on the process of deployment of hypothesis and verification. SysML is adopted as a modeling language for representing mechatronic system without depending on specific domains, and FMEA is adopted as a method for describing the result of validation by prototyping. A framework of DRIFT is used to capture designer's operations on design tools of SysML and FMEA and to manage its process. We define design concepts and design operations which are extracted from the patterns embedded in design process with SysML and FMEA. This paper demonstrates a design example of ball-sorting robot with LEGO Mindstorms performed with a proposed framework.