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Development of a novel mechatronic system for mechanical weed ...

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Materials and methods<br />

plants were repeated 20 times in darkness, by daylight and with intensive<br />

artificial illumination respectively.<br />

42<br />

4.2 The use <strong>of</strong> integrated mechanism design and<br />

simulation in prototype development<br />

The path from an idea to a prototype can be significantly shortened by the use<br />

<strong>of</strong> integrated mechanism design and simulations. With the intensified growth <strong>of</strong><br />

processing power and s<strong>of</strong>tware capabilities the concept <strong>of</strong> virtual prototyping<br />

(VP) has become an appropriate alternative to conventional physical<br />

prototypes.<br />

4.2.1 Introduction to prototypes<br />

The design process is nowadays shifting rapidly toward the use <strong>of</strong> advanced<br />

three-dimensional modelling techniques and a relatively new technology called<br />

virtual prototyping. This technique involves the creation <strong>of</strong> a comprehensive<br />

three-dimensional model capable <strong>of</strong> interacting with a virtual environment that<br />

allows <strong>for</strong> the testing <strong>of</strong> every functional aspect <strong>of</strong> a mechanism. Any<br />

mechanism can be simulated to interact directly with the same elements it will<br />

eventually encounter in its real-world environment.<br />

Up until very recently, just the last five to ten years, all prototype testing was<br />

conducted on physical prototypes that had to be manually built and tested.<br />

Although procedures <strong>for</strong> physical prototypes development have been perfected<br />

and are today quite efficient, several major drawbacks still exist, mainly<br />

because <strong>of</strong> financial, material, labour, and time demands required to complete<br />

the cycle. For any new prototyping process to be useful, it will have to continue<br />

to provide all the feedback <strong>of</strong> physical prototyping, while at the same time<br />

reducing or eliminating its drawbacks. Ideally, it will also provide additional<br />

usefulness not currently available in physical prototyping. Virtual prototyping<br />

meets all <strong>of</strong> these requirements and, as it is still a new technology, promises to<br />

continuously improve in the coming years.<br />

With the exponential growth <strong>of</strong> s<strong>of</strong>tware and hardware capabilities at the<br />

beginning <strong>of</strong> the 21 st century, the concept <strong>of</strong> a virtual prototype has only recently

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