Challenges facing Mechatronic designers

At FDL 06 Prod. K. D. Mueller-Glaser of Universität Karlsruhe gave a keynote speech that highlighted the challenges facing designers that try to model a complex system that consists of 79 processors, 2000m of wiring, 15 year life time expectancy and operating temperatures between -50C and + 125C.

This complex system is better known as the Audi A8 and his speech provided some interesting insights into the design and modelling issues that must be considered. It occurred to me that my research involving modeling network processors is not a million miles away from what they are trying to do.

The organisers of FDL 06 must be congratulated for an excellent conference. It was well organised and attended. The visit to the Cybernarium was also very interesting and motivating.