With a focus on Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), the Third Workshop on Mechatronic Design Leuven 2014 was hosted jointly with Flanders Mechatronics Technology Centre (FMTC), a competence center and scientific partner of LCM. Scientists from seven European nations and the USA as well as numerous company representatives from Belgium participated in the workshop. Prof. Chris Paredis was welcomed as keynote speaker. Paredis is one of the most renowned experts in the field of Systems Engineering and heads the Model-Based System Engineering Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. Recently he became program director at the US National Science Foundation for the programs Engineering & Systems Design and Systems Science.
The workshop handled topics on which LCM is working, including in the realm of the multi-firm-project System Models for Mechatronic Design (SyMMDe), involving four company partners, since January 2013. SyMMDe develops modeling approaches and methods for mechatronic design from a system perspective. Current research results concerning approaches, methods and theories in Mechatronic Design and MBSE were presented and discussed at the workshop. Topics included:
- Focusing on value – MBSE support for value-driven architecting of mechatronic systems
- Holistic and exceptionally fast mechatronic solution concept optimization
- Optimal hybrid driveline synthesis using simulations
- Model-based analysis and control of mechanical and mechatronic systems @ KULeuven-PMA Function allocation theory – systems architecting method for mechatronic systems
- Consistency of research activities on MBSE at Supméca
- Rule-based design space exploration – from electrical circuit generation to mechatronic system design
One motivator for intensified cooperation between FMTC and LCM in the “Mechatronic Design and Model-Based Systems Engineering” was the founding of the “International mechatronic alliance” in December 2012, to which the LCM with the Belgian Centre of Competence in Mechatronics, FMTC in Leuven, and FIMECC, a Finnish network of business enterprises and research organizations merged.
This work has been [partially] supported by the Linz Center of Mechatronics (LCM) in the framework of the Austrian COMET-K2 programme.
