A Model for Selecting Software Tools for Fluid Power Systems

Fluid power systems can be enormously complex. The chiefest complexity is in their control components due to the deep knowledge required for effective development, the need to interface with myriad heterogeneous components, and the opacity of its operation. In the IT sector, a tech stack is a known discretization of function within a system, typically used to categorize what software tools do. This enables disparate parts of a system to be developed separately. Inspired by IT tech stacks, this paper presents a model, the mechatronic tech stack, to mitigate this complexity by siloing control system behavior into discrete functions and classifying what tools can be used to meet them. The model is demonstrated on three case studies of diverse application. The theory is promising, but there are challenges in defining the most useful abstractions and interfaces.