Low-Voltage System Design with Integrated Schematic and 3D Modeling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current technologies lack the ability to fully integrate the schematic diagram of a low-voltage system with its 3D model, automatically identify correct ports and cable-types, perform load calculations, and proactively alert users to unacceptably high voltage drops and overload conditions.
Innovation Solution
A system that allows users to create a schematic diagram and a corresponding 3D model of a low-voltage system, integrating the two to automatically identify correct ports and cable-types, perform load calculations, and alert users to potential issues.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If schematic diagram and 3D model are separately created without integration, then design flexibility is maintained, but design accuracy and consistency deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the schematic diagram and 3D model into a single integrated data structure where each device element contains both schematic properties (connections, electrical parameters) and 3D spatial properties (position, orientation, physical dimensions). This unification ensures that both views represent the same underlying system data, eliminating inconsistencies while maintaining manageable complexity through a single source of truth.
Solution Approach 2:
The integrated device element serves multiple functions simultaneously: it acts as both a schematic electrical component and a 3D spatial object. The same data structure supports both 2D electrical diagram visualization and 3D building model visualization, allowing the system to maintain design accuracy across different representation modes without requiring separate complex systems.
2Productivity
If automatic port and cable-type identification is implemented, then design efficiency is improved, but measurement precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables self-service automatic identification where the integrated data structure automatically determines correct port connections and cable types based on the electrical properties and spatial relationships already defined in the unified model. The device elements self-identify their connection requirements through their inherent schematic and spatial data, eliminating manual intervention while maintaining high accuracy through consistent underlying data.
Solution Approach 2:
The integrated system provides continuous feedback between schematic electrical properties and 3D spatial relationships. When ports or connections are modified in either view, the system automatically updates the other view and re-evaluates connection accuracy, ensuring that port identification remains precise while design efficiency is maintained through automated consistency checking.
3Reliability
If load calculations and voltage-drop analysis are performed proactively, then system reliability is improved, but computational complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs load calculations and voltage-drop analysis proactively during the design phase using the integrated data structure, before the system is implemented. By calculating electrical loads and voltage drops based on the defined device connections and spatial relationships, the system identifies potential reliability issues early in the design process, allowing corrections to be made before deployment without adding complex runtime computation requirements.
4Stability of the object's composition
If integrated schematic and 3D model is created, then design consistency is improved, but data integration complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges schematic and 3D model data into a single integrated device element structure, where electrical properties and spatial properties coexist in the same data object. This merging approach ensures that both schematic and 3D representations are consistently synchronized, as they both reference the same underlying device data, thereby improving design consistency while managing integration complexity through unification rather than complex interconnections.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques are disclosed for the design and modeling of a low-voltage system or network. The low-voltage system is currently or prospectively deployed in a building/site. For this purpose, a schematic diagram and a corresponding 3D model are created for the low-voltage network. The schematic diagram is integrated with the 3D model. As a result, the latter is fully aware of the choices of low-voltage devices, port configurations, connections between the exact ports of the devices and the cable-types for the connections for the low-voltage system being designed. This leads to a number of advantages for the designers/modelers of low-voltage systems. The system can also calculate voltage-drops in connections as well as potential overload conditions. Such error detection capabilities allow the user to take proactive actions at the design stage of the low-voltage system in order to circumvent problems during its operation and after deployment.