Design evolution of mechatronic systems through modeling, on-line monitoring, and evolutionary optimization

This paper presents a system framework to automate the design evolution of multi-domain engineering systems. The developed system integrates machine health monitoring with an expert system to monitor the performance of an existing mechatronic system and to take a decision as to whether and which part of the system a design improvement is necessary. A system model represented by Linear Graphs is evolved using genetic programming to obtain a design that optimally satisfies a specified level of performance. The developed approach allows exploration of the design space to find the optimum design solution in an automated manner. In order to control the arbitrary exploration of the design space, domain knowledge, expertise, and input from the machine health monitoring system are used. The design evolution algorithm is implemented using GPLAB, a MATLAB tool, and integrated with Simscape for modeling and simulation. The developed system is applied to redesign the electro-mechanical conveyor system of an industrial fish processing machine.