Model-based design to support complex systems implementation as a result of reverse engineering

For many applications, it is advantageous to employ a complex system instead of a simple mechanical system. When designing a complex system to fulfill the role of an existing mechanical system, there are many parameters and external functions that must be recreated. If these parameters and functions are not well documented, then they must be recovered directly from the existing system. This paper presents a framework for selecting a numerical model to represent these functions in order to assist the design of the successive complex system. Since model inputs must be recovered from direct measurement, the framework provides a single value ranking of the candidate models based on the reverse engineering work required to make these measurements.