Leveraging Robust Artificial Intelligence for Mechatronic Product Development—A Literature Review

Mechatronic product development is a complex and multidisciplinary field that encompasses various domains, including, among others, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, control theory and software engineering. The integration of artificial intelligence technologies is revolutionizing this domain, offering opportunities to enhance design processes, optimize performance, and leverage vast amounts of knowledge. However, human expertise remains essential in contextualizing information, considering trade-offs, and ensuring ethical and societal implications are taken into account. This paper therefore explores the existing literature regarding the application of artificial intelligence as a comprehensive database, decision support system, and modeling tool in mechatronic product development. It analyzes the benefits of artificial intelligence in enabling domain linking, replacing human expert knowledge, improving prediction quality, and enhancing intelligent control systems. For this purpose, a consideration of the V-cycle takes place, a standard in mechatronic product development. Along this, an initial assessment of the AI potential is shown and important categories of AI support are formed. This is followed by an examination of the literature with regard to these aspects. As a result, the integration of artificial intelligence in mechatronic product development opens new possibilities and transforms the way innovative mechatronic systems are conceived, designed, and deployed. However, the approaches are only taking place selectively, and a holistic view of the development processes and the potential for robust and context-sensitive artificial intelligence along them is still needed.

Combinative Algorithms for the Multidisciplinary Collaborative Simulation of Complex Mechatronic Products Based on Major Step and Convergent Integration Step

Multidisciplinary collaborative simulation （MCS） is an important area of research in the domain of multidisciplinary design optimization （MDO）.Although previous research for MCS has to some extent addressed some issues like using of multiple tools,integration stability,control of step size,data synchronization,etc,further work is still necessary to study how to achieve improved precision.A theoretical model is formulated to describe and analyze the integration process of MCS.A basic algorithm with equal major steps is proposed based on the model,along with two methods of implementation for the model,namely the serial method and the parallel method.A further algorithm based on convergent integration step is proposed,which has a more flexible strategy for run-time integration.The influence of interpolation techniques on simulation performance is studied as well.Simulations of the performance of various algorithms with different interpolation techniques are performed for both a simple numerical example and a complex mechatronic product.The novel algorithm based on convergent integration step,when used with a high-order interpolation technique,has better performance in terms of precision and efficiency.The innovation of this paper is mainly on the validation of high precision of the proposed convergent integration step algorithm.

Customer-oriented Configuration Model for Modular MechatronicProducts: Application in Industrial Robot Design

The contradiction between manufacturing costs and customer demand of mechatronic products can be balanced by configuration design. The article proposes a customer-oriented configuration model for modular mechatronic products which makes up the shortfall in meeting customer needs for the traditional configuration de- sign mode. The elements of the modular mechatronic products configuration model including module, module connection and configuration knowledge are analyzed. And a formal representation method for configuration model elements combining with their characteristics is given. Based on the above research, an abstract configuration model of modular mechatronic products is designed. Finally, an industrial robot is used as an application exam- ple to build a customer-oriented industrial robot configuration model.

SYNTHETIC STRESSLIFE TESTING OF MECHATRONIC PRODUCTS UNDER VARIABLE STRESS SPECTRUM

Mechatronic products usually endure the variable stress spectrum when they operate in certain operational condition and environmental condition, which obey the Weibull distribution. In accordance with the features of mechatronic product, this paper analyzes the failure mode, its corresponding sensitive stress and the design principles of life testing profiles. Based on the above analyses, this paper presents a synthetic stress life testing method based on the hybrid Weibull distribution and its statistical method under variable stress spectrum to evaluate the reliability and life indices of mechatronic products. Because the mechatronic products have many characteristics such as high price, long life and small testing samples, the synthetic stress life testing method under variable load spectrum can simulate the real various spectra, decrease the life testing time and reduce the testing samples. So it is effective to carry out the life testing to mechatronic products. The application results of hydraulic pumps indicate that this method can easily handle the experimental data under variable amplitude spectrum, obtain the high precision parameters point estimation and confidence interval estimation and reduce the testing cost greatly.

Transforming Multidisciplinary Customer Requirements to Product Design Specifications

With the increasing of complexity of complex mechatronic products, it is necessary to involve multidis- ciplinary design teams, thus, the traditional customer requirements modeling for a single discipline team becomes difficult to be applied in a multidisciplinary team and project since team members with various disciplinary backgrounds may have different interpretations of the customers＇ requirements. A new synthesized multidisci- plinary customer requirements modeling method is pro- vided for obtaining and describing the common understanding of customer requirements （CRs） and more importantly transferring them into a detailed and accurate product design specifications （PDS） to interact with dif- ferent team members effectively. A case study of designing a high speed train verifies the rationality and feasibility of the proposed multidisciplinary requirement modeling method for complex mechatronic product development. This proposed research offersthe instruction to realize the customer-driven personalized customization of complex mechatronic product.