What is mechatronics and why teach it?

International Journal of Electrical Engineering Education, Oct 2004 by Bradley, David

Mechatronics technologies and other factors

While there is a general agreement on the core mechatronics technologies of electronics, mechanical engineering together with information technology (IT) and software engineering, to focus exclusively on these technologies within the development of a mechatronics engineer would be misleading. As illustrated by Fig. 4, these technological domains do not exist in isolation, either from each other or from a much wider group of domains, all of which will influence the way in which a mechatronic product or system will evolve. Viewed in this way mechatronics can be seen as a holistic approach to the design, development and manufacture of complex engineering systems, products and processes in which there is an emphasis on the communication and integration of knowledge in a collaborative manner.

Consider the education and training domain. In problem solving, all individuals will draw upon their knowledge and experience in reaching a decision and can be reluctant to incorporate ideas and concepts from elsewhere, particularly where these are seen as conflicting with or challenging their own position. The education and training of mechatronics engineers must therefore be such as to encourage them actively to seek solutions from outside their own direct experience while giving them the confidence, and the ability, to integrate knowledge from other sources. An openness of approach, and a willingness to accept and use ideas from a wide range of sources, is therefore key to the formation of a mechatronics engineer.

Another domain of Fig. 4, that of aesthetics, presents a somewhat different challenge to the education of the mechatronics engineer by forcing them to consider what may often be perceived as a non-engineering aspect of the design process. However, in the case of many products it is the visual aspects that provide the initial impact and, along with the marketing, attracts consumers to that product. The requirement here is therefore to enable mechatronic engineers to gain an understanding of the balance between the aesthetic, and other related, drivers in product development and the underlying engineering, perhaps through the use of CAD and other computer-based tools as illustrated by Fig. 5.

If the mechatronics engineer is going to function as the link between domain specialists, it is important that it is recognised that this role may well extend beyond the core technologies into these other, often less well-defined and unconsidered, areas of mechatronics. This will again require that course structures provide the opportunity for students to practise these and related skills within an appropriate context.

The language of mechatronics

While individual subject domains have developed their own 'language' to describe their activities, the same cannot be said of mechatronics which must take the domainspecific terms and integrate them across domains as part of its communication role. The problem is further compounded by the fact that there are what may be considered as a number of mechatronic 'dialects' depending on the context or theme being considered or referred to. This means that even within the mechatronics community there is the potential for misunderstanding depending upon which dialects are being spoken by the individuals concerned. This situation may be illustrated by considering the session titles at three major mechatronics conferences (Table 2) from which it can be seen that out of a total of 42 sessions, only four are common to all three conferences, while a further 10 are shared across two conferences, leaving 28 to be exclusive to a single conference. While such an analysis is somewhat simplistic as it does not take into account any special themes that the conference is seeking to address, it nevertheless provides some indication of the diversity that exists within the mechatronics community when it comes to describing itself.21,14