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Developing Ontologies for Collaborative Engineering in Mechatronics

Violeta Damjanović, Wernher Behrendt,Manuela Plößnig and Merlin Holzapfel

Salzburg Research, Salzburg, Austria

4th ESWC 2007, Innsbruck, Austria

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Generic Mechatronic Product

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Mechatronic Domain

Mechanical Engineer

Software Engineer

Electronic Engineer

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Mechatronic Engineering Lifecycle Ontology

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DOLCE Foundational Ontology

Cross-domain Engineering Ontology

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ImportNET Ontology Landscape

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| Collaborative Engineering| Application integration; Knowledge integration;

Process integration

| Mechatronic Engineering| Thramboulidis’ metamodel of Integrated

Mechatronics – Mechatronic processes| Yoshioka’ knowledge structure for the Knowledge

Intensive Engineering Framework (KIEF) – Mechatronic artefacts

| Mechatronic Domain Modeling | e.g. FBA (Functional Block Adapter) stereotype| STEP (Standard for Exchange Product Data)

Research Issues in ImportNET

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| ImportNET Approach to Mechatronic Domain Modeling

| Ontology Landscape in ImportNET| Methodology for the development of the

Mechatronic Ontology| Ontology Alignment to the DOLCE Foundational

Ontology

Key Ideas

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Ontology Development Methodologies – Methontology

| Methontology| Glossary of terms| concept taxonomies| ad-hoc binary relation diagrams| concept dictionary| it describes: relations; instance attributes; class

attributes; constants; formal axioms; rules; instances

| Methontology is agnostic about the target ontology representation language

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Ontology Development Methodologies – DILIGENT

| DILIGENT| addresses collaborative development of an ontology

| DILIGENT steps| BUILD – creates an initial, incomplete ontology| LOCAL ADAPTATION – specific groups can have their

variant of the ontology| ANALYSIS – of the local ontologies | REVISE – re-alignment of the shared ontology with

the local ones| UNDERSTAND the shared ontology| IDENTIFY SIMILARITIES – between local and shared

ontology

| DILIGENT is agnostic about the target ontology representation language

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Ontology Development Methodologies – On-To-Knowledge (OTK)

| OTK is a high level methodology| Kickoff| Refinement

| gather a seed taxonomy| develop a seed ontology| conceptualisation and formalisation| tool-supported refinement

| Evaluation| Maintenance

| OTK is agnostic about the target ontology representation language

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Ontology Development Methodologies – DynamOnt

| DynamOnt| Identify the problem; Structure the problem;| Identify concrete purpose and scenarios; | Identify main concepts of domain matter;| Create non-formal methods;| Knowledge design; Community design; Software

design;| Implementation

| DynamOnt is dedicated to uses DOLCE as the target ontology representation language.

| DynamOnt uses DOLCE ontology design patterns

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DOLCE – A Foundational and Formal Ontology

| Descriptive | Ontology for | Linguistic and | Cognitive | Engineering

| developed in the WonderWeb project

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| Participation pattern| Description-Situation pattern| Role-Task pattern| Design-Artifact pattern| Agent-Activity pattern| Information-Object pattern

DynamOnt Ontology Patterns

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Description and Situation Pattern

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Mechatronic Engineering Lifecycle Ontology

Mec

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ogy

DOLCE Foundational Ontology

Cross-domain Engineering Ontology

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Ontology Landscape and Its Alignment to DOLCE

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Current Work – Modeling the Mechatronic Life-Cycle

| In engineering the V-model defines a generic life-cycle model

| Methodology | Top layer of the V-model in DOLCE| Analyse the actual life-cycle models using Event

Process Chain (EPC) notation (a semi-formal modeling language)

| Translate the EPC diagrams into the task ontology of DOLCE

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Mechatronic Engineering Lifecycle

A

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Top Layer of the V-Model

A

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EPC to Express V-Model

Fatman TLON Prolon

Start

Specify requirements

Customer

Project manager, engineers

Define conceptual

model

Not all functions specified

Requirements incomplete

Mechanical and electronic drawings

Customer requirements,

use cases

Rapid prototype - Mechanical

Design

Update HW requirements

& SW functionalities

HW and SW developer

Basic (electronic)

design

Electronic requirement specification

s

HW requirements& list of SW

functionalities

Working specifiations &

mechanical design

mechanical engineer

Project manager, engineers

XOR

Requirements complete

HW and SW developer, sales

& marketing

Customer

XOR

Conceptual model

accepted

Conceptual model not accepted

V

XOR

All functions specified

Domain specific

engineering

Event

Function

Information material

Roles

XOR

V AND

either / or

Exisitng comonents from

previous projects

Case Study A – requirement specifications and basic design (part 1)

A

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Life-Cycle Model Ontology – Layers of Specificity

A

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Summary and Conclusion

| ImportNET is trying to bring the Semantic Web technologies to mechatronic engineering

| Mechatronic engineering is multi disciplinary and therefore needs multiple ontologies

| The engineering process needs process modeling

| The engineering artifacts need structural modeling

| Therefore our ontologies need to capture the dynamic and the static aspects of the domains

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| Thank you !

| Questions ?

| Contact: | violeta.damjanovic@salzburgresearch.at| http://www.salzburgresearch.at