Multidisciplinary Optimization of Mechatronic Systems: Application to an Electric Vehicle

Preliminary design of mechatronic systems is an extremely important step in the development process of multi-disciplinary products. The great challenge in mechatronic design lies in the multidisciplinary optimization of a complete system with various physical phenomena related to interacting heterogeneous subsystems. In this chapter we combine model-based technique using modeling language Modelica with multidisciplinary optimization approach using ModelCenter framework for integrated modeling, simulation and optimization of mechatronic systems. This approach has been applied to the preliminary design of an electric vehicle. Modeling language Modelica has been used to model and simulate the electric vehicle and ModelCenter has been used for the multidisciplinary optimization of the electric motor and the transmission gear ratio. The presented integrated approach allows designers to integrate EV performance analysis with multidisciplinary optimization for efficient design verification and validation.