Interdisciplinary knowledge sharing in solution elements based virtual prototyping of mechatronic systems

A typical mechatronic product includes mechanical parts, software techniques, electrical and electronic components. This interdisciplinary character significantly increases the complexities of mechatronic products. Therefore, inefficient communication between the engineers who come from different domains becomes the main challenge that the designer should face to. However, innovations in the field of virtual prototyping offer potential solutions to this problem. In this paper, we present our solution of sharing knowledge within a multi-disciplinary work group by using the concept of solution elements and virtual reality techniques in our virtual mechatronic prototyping system.