The word “mechatronics” came to life in 1969 at Yaskawa Electric Corp., a Japan-based manufacturer of a broad range of products for motion control, robotics and systems engineering. Yaskawa applied for a registered trademark for the term in 1970, then in 1987 relinquished the trademark, freeing it to become an industry-wide term. Mechatronics is an engineering design concept or domain—some describe it as a culture—that merges all of the engineering involved in “mechanics” (or mechanisms) with the engineering in “electronics.” It is machines + controls. It delves into all the overlaps among machines, computers, controls and electronics.

• Control theory
• Computer science, including programming
• Digital signal processing (DSP) and communications
• Robotics
• Engineering analysis
• And, of course, mathematics, specifically mathematical modeling.

Advantages go to machine function—and the bottom line. The potential benefits of using integrated mechatronics design include optimization plus optimized energy consumption and deeper exploitation of component capabilities—in other words, more avenues for milking every possible attribute of materials, motors, machines and controls. In addition, such designs tend to have fewer performance tradeoffs in cost engineering—in other words, the mechatronics approach allows more possibilities for acceptable or even increased functionality, accuracy and/or reliability at lower cost.

“Ultimately, the benefits go right to the bottom line,” says mechatronics evangelist Kevin Craig, professor, Mechanical Engineering, at Marquette University, in Milwaukee. “Take Procter & Gamble. Here is one group that has a deep realization of the strengths in mechatronics. Engineers there concentrate on production cost savings that are possible by building highly-tuned, proprietary production equipment. The company is realizing millions of dollars in savings—and is capable of building new, desirable features into products—because its engineering group can design to specific capabilities and efficiencies, and solve problems before machines are actually built.”

Favorable trends

 The trends are in favor of integrated, collaborative mechatronics approaches. First, engineering continues to advance, and almost any engineering advance can be seen as contributing to the growing need to adopt mechatronics. For example, centuries of knowledge and measurements in metals have been joined by decades of knowledge about newer engineered materials and composites. Newer materials usually can be cheaper, if for no other reason than they can be produced at net or near-net shape, eliminating manufacturing operations. But every material offers both strengths and tradeoffs, and a mechatronics approach helps maximize the positives and better accommodate differing stiffness factors or differing elasticity.

Progress in motor design—especially servo motors—is now continuous. New products with finer and finer resolution and increased application flexibility enter the market each month. There is a progression of ever-smaller motors with ever-greater power and efficiency. Every element of motion and every element of power transmission have seen advances.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, controls continue to gain in intelligence, with chip logic and programming interfaces capable of directing mechanisms to do nearly anything a designer can imagine. In addition, controls and processors have moved farther and farther away from the central cabinet, to the point where they now can mount directly on the components they control. Operator interfaces similarly show increased sophistication.
Understand the machine

Razvan Panaitescu, manager, Department of Mechatronics, Siemens Energy & Automation Inc., Alpharetta, Ga., says, “The complexity of design today overwhelms any single methodology.” The team of which he is a member applies mechatronics to customers’ applications using his company’s motion equipment, controllers and automation products. The group’s charter is to provide high-level, consultative input into a broad range of machine designs.

While no single path provides answers, he says, “We concentrate on value-added improvements. To ...