Specification of Holistic Mechatronic Objects Based on Semantic Web Technology

In general, mechanic, electronic and software are developed independently by different design tools for the same mechatronic object (MO). As a consequence, it's difficult to find links between interrelated data which are needed by back-end tools like simulators. Even new concepts based on the idea of mechatronic objects are restricted to particular views of fabrication. Different views generate different descriptions and semantics of MO. This paper proposes to define MO in a holistic manner by the language for the semantic Web, OWL (Ontology Web Language) such that each specific view of holistic mechatronic objects (HMO) can use a common knowledge base. This approach could be compared with the database approach where each application has its own view of the database. Furthermore, HMO concept also supports the plug-and-play philosophy.