A co-modelling method for solving incompatibilities during co-design of mechatronic devices

The design process of mechatronic devices, which involves experts from different disciplines working together, has limited time and resource constraints. These experts normally have their own domain-specific designing methods and tools, which can lead to incompatibilities when one needs to work together using these those methods and tools. Having a proper framework which integrates different design tools is of interest, as such a framework can prevent incompatibilities between parts during the design process. In this paper, we propose our co-modelling methodology and co-simulation tools integration framework, which helps to maintain the domain specific properties of the model components during the co-design process of various mechatronic devices. To avoid expensive rework later in the design phase and even possible system failure, fault modelling and a layered structure with fault-tolerance mechanisms for the controller software are introduced. In the end, a practical mechatronic device is discussed to illustrate the methods and tools which are presented in this paper in details.