Unified CAD-EDA Integration for Mechanical-Electronic Co-Simulation
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current design environments for mechanical and electronic systems are segregated, leading to inefficiencies as mechanical design becomes increasingly dependent on electrical and electronic operations, and vice versa, with existing tools failing to adequately address the integration of mechanical and electronic aspects in system design and simulation.
Innovation Solution
An electrical and electronic feature toolbox is integrated into CAD environments, allowing users to add and simulate electrical and electronic elements, with a transducer library, routine library, and code generation engine, enabling unified simulation of mechanical, electrical, and electronic aspects, and programming of embedded systems for Hardware-In-the-Loop simulations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If mechanical and electronic design environments are kept separate, then each environment can be optimized for its specific domain, but the integration and simulation of combined mechanical-electronic systems becomes inefficient and complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges mechanical CAD and electronic design environments into a single integrated platform. The system combines mechanical component modeling capabilities with electronic circuit simulation and embedded system programming in one unified environment, eliminating the need for separate tools and improving both reliability of integration and design productivity.
Solution Approach 2:
The integrated design environment provides universal functionality that handles mechanical design, electronic circuit design, embedded programming, and system simulation all within one platform. This multi-functional approach allows designers to work across domains without switching tools, resolving the contradiction between specialized optimization and integration needs.
2Adaptability or versatility
If traditional separate design tools are used for mechanical and electronic systems, then domain-specific functionality is maintained, but the ability to simulate and test integrated systems is inadequate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple design tools into one integrated system that can simulate mechanical components, electronic circuits, and embedded software interactions simultaneously. This merging provides versatile simulation capability while reducing toolchain complexity by eliminating the need to coordinate multiple separate tools.
3Measurement precision
If mechanical design focuses on structural integrity and electronic design focuses on circuit functionality, then each domain achieves high precision, but the interaction and co-simulation between domains is insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The integrated design environment acts as an intermediary that connects mechanical and electronic domain simulations. It enables bidirectional data exchange and co-simulation, preserving cross-domain interaction information while maintaining the measurement precision and simulation accuracy of each individual domain through specialized modeling capabilities.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods receive a model of a physical system. The model includes a virtual mechanical component that represents a physical mechanical component of the physical system, and a virtual transducer that represents a physical transducer of the physical system. The systems and methods include generating a wiring diagram that includes information for connecting the physical mechanical component or the physical transducer to a data processing device or an embedded system. The model may be executed by the data processing device or the embedded system to interact with the physical mechanical component or the physical transducer as part of Hardware-in-the Loop (HIL), Processor-in-the-Loop (PIL), or other simulation or testing.