Interdisciplinary system architecture for intelligent technical systems

Nowadays, mechanical engineering products change from mechatronic products, characterized by the close interplay of mechanics, electronics, control and software engineering to Intelligent Technical Systems (ITS). Intelligent Technical Systems are mechatronic systems with inherent partial intelligence. Mechanical engineering products will be a symbiosis of information technology and mechanical parts. This will entail a rising complexity of technical systems and its development. Therefore we introduce an approach to improve system architectures of mechanical engineering products to realize Intelligent Technical Systems. Our approach meets the following challenges: creating a domain-spanning description of the system with Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE); designing an interdisciplinary and modular system architecture by using the technological concept of Intelligent Technical Systems; identifying and implementing solution elements as reusable modules. Validated by a separator, our results clarify the benefits of MBSE and the technological concept of ITS to improve system architectures of mechanical engineering products to realize Intelligent Technical Systems.