Design Master: A System Engineering Graphical User Interface Tool

摘要

Often software modeling or simulation tools for engineering applications exist as separate packages (power, scheduling, mass, cost, reliability, etc.). This does not allow system designers to explore the synergies among various aspects of the "total" system. Because the lack of commercial tools with the ability and ease to integrate engineering models and data- bases, we designed a new and reusable tool for a wide range of engineering applications. It is called the Design Master: A Systems Engineering Graphical User Interface Tool. Design Master is a desktop personal computer program for use by system designers which allows system simulation or design tradeoff studies for various engineering applications (electrical, thermal, reliability, etc.). The program is generic and dynamic object-oriented with graphical event-driven user interface. It is fully integrated into Microsoft Windows environments and provides connectivity across network and other executable programs through the Component Object Model (COM) feature. Design Master also permits the creation of objects (graphical screen images with design functionalities or properties), template objects, groups of objects, or entire system representations for a particular engineering discipline. New models and databases can be created within the system. However, existing shareware models and databases can be linked to the Design Master for execution. This paper introduces the Design Master and discusses some of its typical engineering applications.