Ifac Data-base Management Guidelines for Computer-aided Control Engineering

Rigorous and supportive engineering database management (EDBM) was accorded little serious consideration in computer-aided control engineering (CACE) software development prior to the mid 1980s. By then, CACE environments had become very powerful and extensive, and thus the need for keeping track of models, analysis results, control system designs, and validation study results had become increasingly evident. Two motivations spurred an interest in EDBM: it may be very costly to neglect this task, and a well-designed EDBM support can also increase productivity in the analysis and design process. Software for EDBM should be designed as an integral part of a CACE environment. Here the features of such an integrated EDBM system will be proposed and described. In particular, we will discuss EDBM organization and features that improve CACE productivity .