A solution elements based cooperative assembly system for mechatronic virtual prototyping

In order to catch up with the steps of rapidly changing markets, the product development period of modern mechatronic products has to be as short as possible. However, mechatronic engineering is based on the interaction of mechanics, electronics, control engineering and software. Therefore, inefficient communication between the engineers who come from different disciplines becomes a manifest obstruction for accelerating mechatronic products design. Furthermore, with increasingly complex mechatronic products, this problem becomes even worse. Nevertheless, innovations in the field of virtual prototyping offer potential solutions to this problem. We present a concept for a cooperative assembly and analysis system, which utilizes virtual reality techniques to facilitate virtual prototyping in a multi-disciplinary workgroup. We also introduce a prototype implementation of the concept.