Management of heterogeneous information for integrated design of multidisciplinary systems

Multidisciplinary systems (such as Mechatronics or Cyber Physical Systems) are considered as the resulting integration of design expertise from several disciplines such as electrical/electronic, mechanical and computer sciences. As a result, a large number of design data, such as software code, CAD models, 0D/1D and 2D/3D CAE results, etc. are generated by designers and heterogeneous computer-based tools throughout the whole development process. Therefore, effective exchange between designers from different disciplines is required in order to achieve multidisciplinary integration. In order to insure knowledge sharing between the designers issued from the different disciplines, the heterogeneous information from previous design projects could be captured, elucidated and managed by designers. In this paper, after presenting the multidisciplinary integration during the system design, the importance of effective exchange between designers from different disciplines is highlighted. Then, the existing techniques related to the capture and management of heterogeneous information are presented. Afterwards, an approach helping designers to capture the design data issued from CAD models and 0D/1D and 2D/3D CAE results, is introduced. Finally, the conclusion is drawn and future work is pointed out.