Abstract
Micromachine technology has developed in recent years significantly and become an outstanding research field with remarkable results. In the past, several new products resulted, mainly related with sensors, actuators, and medical apparatus. The characteristics of micromachines are given by the interaction of miniaturised mechanical and electronic components, which are manufactured by methods originally developed for semiconductor production. These characteristics of micromachines are taken as occasion to investigate the possibilities of supporting the micromachine design process with knowledge based systems.
After a short introduction into knowledge based design systems and design methodologies, a case study on the micromachine design is presented. We will mainly examine the conceptual design stage based on the methodological design. From the case study, specific requirements for a design environment to support the micromachine design process are derived. These requirements are compared with the capabilities offered by today’s concepts for advanced design systems such as SYSFUND. Then, the necessary enhancement for SYSFUND that was found in the process of knowledge representation is described. Finally an extended concept for a micromachine design environment is discussed.
