Bondlab, a Toolbox for mechatronic design embedded in MatLab 5

Bondlab has been set up as a platform independent toolbox in Matlab for mechatronic systems design. Powerful data structure constructs and object oriented facilities of the latest Matlab release are used to guarantee code transparency and maintenance eeciency. In order to retain fast execution of the code the classical vectorization of critical parts is still necessary. This new tool has the ability to model systems in a behavioral sense, i.e. the modeler does not have to take into account computational considerations of the problem formulation (as is the case with causally constrained block diagram editors like Simulink). To cover this behavioral framework, bond graphs are chosen as the modeling language. This choice makes it possible to (1) exploit the human perception of graphs, (2) to cover the bond graph related analysis aspects of a design, and (3) to connect seamlessly the behavioral and causal model description formalisms that occur in the design of mechatronic systems. It is the rst Matlab based toolbox which makes it possible to integrate the whole design process, from conceptual modeling to product design, in a single software environment .