The Collaborative Research Centre 614 „Self-optimizing concepts and structures in mechanical engineering” (CRC 614) is now seven years old and in the fourth year of the second period. It is based on an outstanding capability of the University of Paderborn: the symbiosis of computer sciences, engineering disciplines and mathematics. This capability results in a distinct competence in mechatronics, which combined with optimization methods is the foundation of CRC 614.

CRC 614 is focused on methods. It delivers methods for the design of tomorrow’s mechanical engineering products. These products have inherent partial intelligence. The definition of these methods runs along with the development of sophisticated demonstrators, which are representative for mechanical engineering products and related areas like the automotive industry.

Tomorrow’s electro-mechanical systems are in the focus of CRC 614. They will be 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. These abilities open fascinating perspective regarding the design of the mechanical systems. The term self-optimization characterizes this perspective:

“Self-optimization describes the ability of a technical system to endogenously adapt its objective regarding changing influences and thus an autonomous adaption of the system’s behavior in accordance with the objective. The behavior adaption may be implemented by changing the parameters or the structure of the system. Thus self-optimization goes considerably beyond the familiar rule-based and adaptive control strategies; Self-optimization facilitates systems with inherent “intelligence” that are able to take action and react autonomously and flexibly to changing operating conditions.”

The vision of CRC 614 is new school for design of intelligent mechatronic systems. This new school is formed by a number of instruments like process models, design methods, tool and best practices. The definition of these instruments runs along with the development of sophisticated demonstrators, which are representative for mechanical engineering products and related areas like the automotive industry and medical engineering. The CRC 614 pursuits four main objectives which are reflected by the project areas:

• Project Area A: Foundations and Potentials of Self-Optimization – scientific exploration and an adequate presentation for engineering issues of the paradigm of Self-optimization
• Project Area B: Design Methods and –Tools: Definition of the methodology and the instruments, which are required to developed innovative systems which rely on the paradigm of self-optimization
• Project Area C: Implementation Methods – Realization of self-optimization on the level of hardware, system software and control software
• Project Area D: Self-optimizing Products and Systems – Design and prototypical realization of new components and systems to evaluate the developed methods and provide stimulate product innovations

In the first period the basic guideline of the scientific programs and fundamental concepts were defined as first concepts. Examples for these basic concepts are the operator-controller-architecture or the specification technique for the domain spanning definition of the principal solution. The guidelines and fundamental guidelines were confirmed at the end of the second phase. The distinctness of the conceptual guidelines of CRC 614 enabled the goal oriented collaboration of the subprojects and work groups. This collaboration results in the high number of demonstrators, which rely on problem analysis and solution synthesis in cooperation of several subprojects.

It can be noticed, that CRC 614 accomplished he objectives of the second phase. This statement can be confirmed in details in the report of the several subprojects and in the two books published by CRC 614. Especially the demonstrators support the statement, that CRC 614 is on good way to fulfill its vision. On the one hand the current results are tangible and relevant to practice. Five transfer projects were established in the second half of 2008. On the other hand there is still fundamental research and intensive concretization and completion is required to give mechanical engineering and related discipline the desired impulses for the competition of tomorrow.

Project Structure/Project Areas and Subprojects

Publications

• GAUSEMEIER, J.: Designing Tomorrow's Mechanical Engineering Products. In: Proceedings of the ITI 3rd International Conference on Information & Communication Technology (ICICT 2005). 5-6th December 2005, Cairo, Egypt, 2005
• GAUSEMEIER, J.; FRANK, U.; STEFFEN, D: Entwicklung selbstoptimierender Systeme. In: Konstruktion, 57. Jahrgang, Heft 10, 2005
• GAUSEMEIER, J.; FRANK, U.; GIESE, H.; KLEIN, F.; SCHMIDT, A.; STEFFEN, D.; TICHY, M.: A Design Methodology for Self-Optimizing Systems. In: Automation, Assistance and Embedded Real Time Platforms for Transportation (AAET2005). 16.-17. Februar 2005, Braunschweig, 2005
• GIESE, H.; BURMESTER, S.; SCHÄFER, W.; OBERSCHELP, O.: Modular Design and Verification of Component-Based Mechatronic Systems with Online-Reconfiguration, in Proc. of 12th ACM SIGSOFT Foundations of Software Engineering 2004 (FSE 2004), Newport Beach, USA, November 2004.
• BURMESTER, S.; GEHRKE, M.; GIESE, H.; OBERTHÜHR, S.: Making Mechatronic Agents Resource-aware in order to Enable Safe Dynamic Resource Allocation, in Proc. of Fourth ACM International
  Conference on Embedded Software 2004 (EMSOFT 2004), Pisa, Italy, September 2004.
• DANGELMEIER, W.; GIESE, H.; KLEIN, F.; RENKEN, H.; SCHEIDELER, P.: Shared Experiences In Intelligent Transportation Systems, in Proc. of the IAV 2004 - The 5th Symposium on intelligent Autonomous Vehicles, Lisbon, Portugal, July 2004.
• FRANK, U.; GIESE, H.; KLEIN, F.; OBERSCHELP, O.; SCHMIDT, A.; SCHULZ, B.; VÖCKING, H.; WITTING, K., GAUSEMEIER J.(Hrsg.): Selbstoptimierende Systeme des Maschinenbaus – Definitionen und Konzepte. HNI-Verlagsschriftenreihe, Band 155, ISBN: 3-935433-64-4 ,Paderborn, 2004
• HESTERMEYER, T.; OBERSCHELP, O.; GIESE, H.: Structured Information Processing For Selfoptimizing Mechatronic Systems. In: Araújo, H.; Vieira, A.; Braz, J.; Encarnaçao, B.; Carvalho, B. (Hrsg.): Proceedings of 1st International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO 2004). Setubal, Portugal, 2004