Product development support for complex mechatronic system engineering - case fusion reactor maintenance

Development of a multidisciplinary mechatronic system, like a remote operated maintenance system of ITER fusion reactor, requires system engineering approach. System engineering is a leadership approach for designing totally new concepts and technology. On the other hand, system engineering needs support for managing all related processes and information. Product lifecycle management (PLM) can be seen as IT-aided enabler of such processes and information management desires. Divertor Test Platform 2 (DTP2) is a full scale mock-up and test facility for developing, testing and demonstrating remote operated maintenance equipment as well as planning and training future maintenance operations. Characteristic for DTP2 is that its development and operational lifecycle will be several decades long. History of the system has to be traceable and all data must be available during the whole lifecycle. This work in progress paper aims to introduce the first results of the ongoing project, which defines and implements PLM support for DTP2 system engineering. The preliminary results include requirements specification for the PLM platforms, and a concept for mechatronic product model and data model.