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Model-Based Design is increasingly prevalent in industrial sectors including aerospace and automotive, but lacking from college and university curricula. The need for students to be adept at the modeling of systems, their associated subsystems, and overall system controller as per the standard industry practice is the impetus for The MathWorks, Freescale, and MotoTron to partner with Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology to address the lack of students familiar with this industry standard practice. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology has created the Model-Based-System Design Center with the express purpose of introducing the philosophy of Model-Based Design to the educational community. This paper describes the function of the Center and the teaching materials currently being generated.

The increased adoption of electronic controls in off-highway machines increases the complexity of typical machine systems and stresses the traditional process used to develop these machines. To address this issue design engineers are turning from the traditional design methods to Model-Based Design. By using models in the early design stages, engineers can create executable specifications that enable them to immediately validate and verify specifications against the requirements. These models also allow the machine designer to evaluate the complex interactions between mechanics, hydraulics, electronics and other physical phenomena and thereby detect design errors earlier when the cost to fix them is less. This paper presents a model-based approach for developing off-highway equipment machine systems. A dynamic model of the machine and the electro-hydraulic implement and propulsion system is developed and used to verify the overall machine behavior.

The need to meet new regulatory requirements as well as customer expectations in terms of machine productivity, safety, maintenance and uptime, is driving a significant transformation from conventional hydraulic and mechanical systems to electro-hydraulic systems in the earth-moving and agricultural equipment industry. The ability to model and simulate such systems plays a key role in this transformation by allowing manufacturers to test whether the system meets requirements using virtual prototypes rather than physical prototypes. Modeling the electrical, electronic, mechanical, and hydraulic domains in the same modeling environment can significantly improve the product development process of such machines. This paper illustrates those benefits using the example of an electro-hydraulic implement system.