Comparative analysis of design concepts of mechatronics systems with a CAD tool for system architecting

In mechatronics systems design, designers need to deal with complexity derived from the integration of subsystems with various engineering disciplines. In particular, while developing product architecture for the next generation systematically, the present generation systems in the market should be reviewed in terms of their functional overview as well as module structure. This paper proposes a method for developing product architecture by a comparative analysis of the functional overview as well as physical decomposition of existing mechatronics systems. The method employs function-behaviour-state modelling and a computer-aided design (CAD) system for system architecting (SA-CAD) as a modelling scheme and modelling environment, respectively. The paper describes the application of the proposed method in the development of product architecture of autonomous vacuum cleaning robots.