Systematic Requirements-Driven Evaluation and Synthesis of Alternative Principle Solutions for Advanced Mechatronic Systems

In advanced mechatronic systems, software was traditionally employed late in the development process for cost-effectively realizing the required control functionality. Today however, software has become one of the main drivers for innovation, enabling cost-effective variants and online reconfiguration. During the development of mechatronic systems, different alternative principle solutions are usually systematically evaluated w.r.t. physical and economic requirements and constraints. We refine this step by performing a differentiated analysis factoring in relevant environmental influences. For multiple variants of a product line, the evaluation results can easily be reused by adjusting the weights of individual requirements and the relevance of different environmental situations. Taking synergies during development and production into account, a set of alternatives can then be identified which provides high performance at a low cost for the product line. Based on the refined analysis, we can furthermore identify combinations of alternative solutions that offer a more complete coverage of the required operation conditions or a more cost-effective solution by performing an online software reconfiguration in response to changes in the environment