group first studies any available CAD and dynamic models, as well as any analysis done up to the point of turnover to the team. “We try to sing at the wedding without being a musician,” as he puts it—in other words, assimilate as quickly as possible the design strategies already applied to a given project. The group then applies tools designed to bring control and software requirements into sharp relief. These include lumped mass studies, 3D multi-body modeling techniques and highly sophisticated 2D and 3D finite element analysis.

Craig draws a distinction between becoming, say, a CAD operator and using the tool for engineering. “We don’t want to train students to be tool users—we want to allow them to become masters, knowing when to use the tools and for what. We don’t believe in ‘freshman tools.’ We give them extremely powerful packages to use over the next four years.”

The components

The final part of the mechatronics picture is the trend toward mechatronics-enabled components, or more specifically, machine and automation components with the following characteristics:

• Integrated or (if separate) matched controllers/drivers, allowing maximum optimization and response times
• Standards-based electronics and software/firmware, enabling easy (or at least easier) integration with standards-based components from other suppliers
• Control and/or functional design with appropriate speed and responsiveness—in other words, designs that are flexible enough to provide what is required
• A mechatronics-savvy supplier.

Of these, perhaps the most important is the last. “Savvy” means supportive, with dedicated mechatronics design resources that can be applied to your needs. The Siemens group, for example, offers R&D at a high project level. Other suppliers, such as Bosch Rexroth, provide specific help. For example, the Bosch Rexroth Linear Motion and Assembly Technologies group, in Hoffman Estates, Ill., helps end-users integrate that company’s components into systems.
“Our charter is to blend our core products into a solution for both distributors and customers,” says Richard Vaughn, robotics product engineer. “We’ll bring together mechanical actuators, servo motors, end-effectors, ball screws—anything that combines to deliver a given need.”

The approach could be seen as a mixed-mode design effort, with components providing the impetus from the bottom up, and customer requirements driving design from the top down. “Our methodology begins with what we call LOSTPED,” Vaughn says. “That is, our beginning point is the customer’s mechanical specifications, specifically load, orientation—for example, whether vertical or horizontal—speed, travel or overall length of motion, positional accuracy and repeatability requirements, environment or working conditions, and duty cycle.”

From this basis, Vaughn’s group then works with the customer to flesh out control strategies. “And we work collaboratively with our internal divisions for servo, controls and pneumatics optimization,” he says. “The key is to keep an open mind when looking at solutions,” Vaughn says. “Almost any given problem can be resolved with the right sort of motion combined with the right level of control.”

The Domains of Mechatronics
The elements of design that a mechatronics approach can help solve or optimize.
Motion Variables

• Position
• Speed
• Acceleration
• Jerk (acceleration change rates)
• Torque.

Application conditions

Optimization

 • Stability
• Responsiveness
• Oscillation
• Following error
• Chatter, noise, ringing
• Tool/material reliability.

Source: Department of Mechatronics, Siemens Energy & Automation Inc.