The conceptual design and simulation of mechatronic system base on UML

UML has been widely accepted by the software community for nearly more than fifteen years. As mechatronic systems design can no longer be seen as an isolated hardware design or software design activity, UML becomes of significant interest as a unification language for systems description combining both hardware and software components. This article provides a method based on the UML applied to conceptual design of mechatronic systems. The modeling concepts in the UML language are first introduced, including major diagrams for the representation of the behavior and the structure of systems. An example relevant to robot design is given. The article stresses the viewpoint that the design of modern mechatronic system is by nature a kind of design of the information system for the subsequent manufacturing, and addresses the question of UML-based design flows, and shows how UML can be applied step by step to the development of complex mechatronic systems. In the last part of the article, we show how UML tools can be combined with well-known simulation environments, such as MATLAB to verify and validate the conceptual design of the robot.