Intelligent systems, self-optimizing concepts and structures

Abstract

Nowadays, most mechanical engineering products already rely on the close interaction of mechanics, electronics, control engineering and software engineering which is aptly expressed by the term mechatronics. The ambition of mechatronics is to optimize the behavior of a technical system. Sensors collect information about the environment and the system itself. The system utilizes this information to derive optimal reactions. Future mechanical engineering systems will consist of configurations of system elements with inherent partial intelligence. The behavior of the overall system is characterized by the communication and cooperation between these intelligent system elements. From the point of view of information technology we consider these distributed systems to be cooperative agents. This opens up fascinating possibilities for designing tomorrow's mechanical engineering products [1]. The term self-optimization characterizes this perspective. © 2006 Springer.