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Summary and Outlook

This book is concerned with the problem of modelling and simulating mechatronic
and micromechatronic systems on the basis of hardware description languages.
To achieve this, it first describes the modelling of electronics, mechanics and elec-
tromechanics. This is followed by a comprehensive representation of the description
methods and possibilities of hardware description languages. Then the latest meth-
ods for the modelling of multibody mechanics, continuum mechanics and software,
plus their representation in hardware description languages, are presented. This
compendium of basic methods is subsequently applied to six demonstrators from
mechatronics and micromechatronics in the application chapters.
In the past, a hotchpotch of isolated individual solutions existed in the field of
the modelling and simulation of (micro)mechatronics using hardware description
languages. This work makes the transition to a unified approach for the whole prob-
lem class by highlighting the most important modelling strategies for the domains
typically involved — i.e. multibody and continuum mechanics, digital and analogue
electronics plus software — and describing their representation in digital and ana-
logue hardware description languages. The problem of mixed simulation is thereby
transformed into a problem of mixed modelling, which is significantly easier to get
to grips with. In addition, elaborate, commercial simulators are available for all the
main hardware description languages. Furthermore, due to the option of functional
modelling, hardware description languages facilitate the introduction of a top-down
design sequence. This has brought significant productivity gains in the design of
digital electronics and increasingly also in the field of analogue electronics. Using
the described methods, top-down design can now also be applied for mechatronic
and micromechatronic systems.
In addition to the validation of executable specifications and the verification of
designs by simulation — which are already possible using the methods presented in
this book — in future, further options will open up, such as the synthesis and formal
verification of mixed systems. This used to be the exclusive preserve of digital elec-
tronics and to some degree also analogue electronics. The use of the system models
available in the form of hardware descriptions removes a significant obstacle.

Mechatronic Systems Georg Pelz
 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd ISBN: 0-470-84979-7