Engineering of automated manufacturing systems with mechatronic objects

Engineering of automated manufacturing systems requires a lot of effort and therefore creates a bottleneck. In this paper we present a methodology of designing the concept of systems based on mechatronic objects. The methodology proposed enables the identification of objects, which take mechatronic aspects into consideration. This means we are able to create a holistic concept design of the mechanics, electrics and electronics and software. The approach of identifying mechatronic objects is novel because the overall blueprint of the system can be optimized across the various disciplines. The methodology is demonstrated based on an example of special machinery systems, whereby the functional evaluation of the concept is discussed throughout the detail-engineering phase.