The inter-disciplinary simulation environment including the firmware and the mechanical system

Recently, the computer simulation becomes more important to reduce the development cost and the lead time. In many fields, the virtual prototype using computer simulation has already replaced the real prototype. However, in the mechatronics field, there are still difficulties in using the virtual prototypes because the mechatronics is the inter-disciplinary system which includes the several different fields such as mechanical field, electrical field. The main reason is that it is difficult to connect the different discplinary environments each other and visualization of them is also difficult. So, it is needed to develop an easy environment which can resolve this difficulty. This study proposes the inter-disciplinary simulation environment which includes the firmware and the mechanical system Since it is very difficult to test and debug the firmware and the haidware together, a virtual environment using CAE and CASE technologies is desirable. In this study, an example of a robot using LEGO Mindstorrrs® will be used. The virtual environment to devebp, test and debug firmware will be proposed using RecurDyn(CAE), ZTPQCASE) and Mindstorms. copyright (c) 2010 by JSME.