Abstract
In the system architecting, or conceptual design, of mechatronic systems such as high-end printers and medical instruments, system architects define a hierarchical structure of subsystems and their interfaces in terms of parameter relations independently from specific physical domains. Such a hierarchical structure is necessary to understand the overall functions of systems and clarify the design objectives and tasks to be refined in the detailed design stage. Our research focuses on computer-aided design of multi-domain physical systems in conceptual design. Within the research framework, this report proposes a method to compose structural hierarchy of mechatronics systems along with functional system decomposition. The method has been implemented a CAD system for system architecting and demonstrated with a system architecting case of an air conditioner. The method helps systematically generate possible structural hierarchies of systems based on various computational supports with the knowledge base of physical phenomena and a heuristic algorithm.
