Bond graphs are suitable tools for modeling many types of dynamical systems and can model these systems consisting of mechanical, electrical, fluidic, and pneumatic sub-systems. The advantage of a bond graph is that it can model non-linear systems and combinational systems. In this paper, the authors utilize bond graphs for modeling mechatronics systems. Mechatronics systems consist of mechanics, electronics, and intelligent software. Many of these systems have digital sections that are constructed by logical circuits (hardware by transistors and now mostly by chips). The authors present a methodology to implement these mechatronics systems by bond graphs.
TopIntroduction
Bond graph was introduced by the late Henry M. Paynter (1923-2002), professor at MIT & UT Austin, with the introduction of junctions in April 1959. In a period of about a decade, most of the underlying concepts were formed and were put together into a conceptual framework and corresponding notation (Paynter, 1961, 1992). In the sixties the notation, e.g. the half arrow to represent positive orientation and insightful node labeling, was further elaborated by researchers, in particular Dean C. Karnopp at UC Davis (Ca); and Roland C. Rosenberg (1968, 1974, 1990), at Michigan State University (Michigan) who also designed the first computer tool (ENPORT) that supported simulation of bond graph models [Rosenberg, 1965, 1974]. In the early seventies Jan J. Van Dixhoorn (1972; Evans et al., 1974) at the University of Twente, NL, and Jean U. Thoma (1975) at the University of Waterloo (Ontario) were the first to introduce bond graphs in Canada and Europe, respectively.
These pioneers in the field and their students have been developing these ideas worldwide (Karnopp et al., 1979). Jan Van Dixhoorn realized that an early prototype of the block-diagram-based software TUTSIM could be used to input simple causal bond graphs, and about a decade later, resulted in a PC-based tool (Beukeboom et al., 1985). This laid the foundation for the development of truly port-based computer tool 20-sim at the University of Twente (Broenink & Breedveld, 1988) (www.20sim.com). He also initiated research in modeling more complex physical systems, in particular thermofluid systems (Breedveld, 1979). In the last two decades, bond graphs either have been a research topic or are used in research projects at many universities worldwide and have become part of engineering curricula at a steadily growing number of universities. In the last decade, their industrial use has become more and more important.
Logic circuits are also very important tools for implementing logic by electronic circuits. Initially, these circuits were used for implementing necessary logic in computers. In fact the existence of computers owes a lot to these circuits. After production of electronic chips the size of these circuits decreased considerably and thus increased their popularity. However, implementing logic by transistors is still used. Nowadays these circuits exist in most of the electronic systems, and transistors and chips can be readily found on such electronic circuits and boards.