Use of Mechatronics in Today’s Industry: A CASE STUDY
ABSTRACT:
Mechanical engineering is one of the
most professional branches which
experience a surge growth in early 19th
century, as it was the backbone of
industrial growth and revolution. But
with the passage of time leading to
advancement in technology and
enhancement in productivity, mechanical
found difficult to fulfil the demands,
whims and fancies .Therefore it employed
electronics engineering, giving birth to
the most blockbuster and stupendous
branch of engineering which we calling
as mechatronics. Mechatronics is a
synergetic integration of mechanical,
electrical, computer science
.Mechatronics is everywhere such as
automobiles, robotics, pumps and many
more The objective is to build smart
products and “intelligent” machines.
Software is an integral part of such
products and machines, and can be
regarded as a machine element. This
paper describes the concept of
mechatronics systems and its applications
.First the introduction and functions of
mechatronics system are described. The
next section describes various
mechatronics systems such as automotive
mechatronics, advanced robotic systems
-and biomechatronics and healthcare in
brief. The last section describes the
various applications of mechatronics
system. This review paper is an attempt to
provide a systematic understanding of
Mechatronics systems, which can be
helpful to the researchers.
KEYWORDS: Mechatronics, Automotive
mechatronics, Robotic systems etc.
INTRODUCTION: The word,
Mechatronics, is composed of “mecha”
from mechanical and the “tronics” from
electronics. Mechatronics has developed
worldwide into a very attractive research
area. It is a design process that combines
in a synergetic way the classical
engineering disciplines mechanical and
electrical engineering and computer
science, leading to new kinds of products
[2]. Mechatronics is
a multidisciplinary field of engineering,
that is to say, it rejects
splitting engineering into separate
disciplines. Originally, mechatronics just
included the combination of mechanics
and electronics, hence the word is a
combination of mechanics and electronics;
however, as technical systems have
become more and more complex the word
has been broadened to include more
technical areas [1]. The term mechatronics
for such a synthesis task came from Japan
in about 1980, having been coined; it is
said, by an employee of the Yasukawa
Company. This interconnection of
disciplines is actually not new: in
aerospace engineering especially it has
been well-known for a long time and has
been successful. The actual development
of mechatronics is based on the availability
of relatively cheap computational power
and it is further supported by the rise of
versatile power electronics. The tendency
is obviously to include much more
information processing into the product to
make better use of power and resources
and to make it more versatile for the user.
Subsequently, a definition of mechatronics
will be given, together with a survey on
the international activities in mechatronics
in industry, research, and education. Some
implications on relevant research
directions such as design, production
techniques, control, artificial intelligence, the simultaneous engineering has to be
and man/machine interfaces. employed to achieve the goal of designing
an overall integrated system and creating
MECHATRONICS DEFINATION: A synergetic effects.
generalized definition of mechatronics is Mechatronic technology brings out several
described as encompassed mechanical improvements, for example, more system
components and electronically based performance, higher product qualitative,
decision making (control circuitry). But, cost-down of manufacture, lower power
systems engineers consider that consumption, higher precision, efficiently
mechatronics is a form of concurrent transformation between electrical power
design and manufacturing engineering and mechanical power, and so on [10].
practices [3, 4, 5]. Another definition
excerpted from literatures showed as Mechatronics is a key cornerstone of
following: modern industrial technologies, and it is
"Mechatronics is defined as the field of developed toward more efficient, more
study involving the analysis, design, convenient, more intelligent, more
synthesis, and selection of systems that integrated and human-friendly.
combine electronic and mechanical
components with modern controls and
microprocessors [6].
"Mechatronics is the application of
complex decision making to the operation
of
Physical systems [7].
"Mechatronics is an engineering process
that involves the design and manufacture
of intelligent products or systems
involving hybrid mechanical and
Fig1: Mechatronics synergetic integration
electronic functions [8].
of different disciplines
"Mechatronics is the synergistic
combination of precision mechanical
FUNCTIONS OF MECHATRONICS:
engineering, electronics, control
Basically, the major function in
engineering, and computer science [9].
mechatronic system is the capability of
Mechatronics is a multidisciplinary
sensing the change of the real-world
engineering science that involves three
environment to assist mechatronic systems
major disciplines of mechanical, electrical,
in achieving desired actions of a
and computer engineering.
mechanical component, or the
A. Mechanical Engineering (machines,
technological restrictions required in a
mechanical elements, dynamics and
specific manufacturing process. Modern
kinetics);
mechatronic system presents many
B. Electronic Engineering
improved and smart functions, e.g., the
(microelectronics, power electronics,
estimation of non-measurable variables,
instrumentation, signal processing);
the self-tune and adaptation of controller
C. Computer Engineering (operation
parameters, reconfiguration, supervision
system, control theory, software
and fault diagnosis, safety and fault
engineering, artificial intelligence).
tolerance. In the future, many autonomic
During the design processes of
functions including reconfigurability, self-
mechatronic systems, the interplay for the
organization, self-repair, autonomous
design in mechanical system and
evolution, and self-replication, and so on,
electronic system are crucial, and result in
will be implemented [11]

A BRIEF SURVEY OF CURRENT
MECHATRONIC SYSTEMS:
AUTOMOTIVE MECHATRONICS:
The burgeoning automotive industry
impacts the social, environmental,
economic, and technological aspects of our
daily life. More and more mechatronic
systems were investigated in automotive
application, including antilock braking
systems, supplemental restraint systems ,
cruise control, and traction control.
Mechatronic systems play a more
important role for improving automotive
functionality, safety, economy and
comfort, and the designed functions assist
the driver to prevent unstable or
unpredictable behaviour and to stabilize
the motion of the automobile. The
complex capabilities of fault detection and
diagnosis are achieved by the integration
of several burgeoning technologies in the
field of actuators, sensors, data processing,
and so on. In the traditional valve-
controlled hydraulic elevator, when the
vehicle moves downwards, the entire
potential energy of the vehicle is wasted
and converted into fluid heat by throttling.
To reduce the energy consumption and
power installation requirements, Yang et
al. (2007) designed a novel micro-
controller-based energy-regenerating
hydraulic elevator using an accumulator as
the energy restoring component, which
would be reduced to a level at par with that
of an electrical elevator [12]. Fischer et al.
(2007) proposed the concepts of model-
based fault detection and diagnosis along
with sensor fault tolerance for automotive
system, and realized a vehicle lateral
dynamics system and an active suspension
system[13].
ADVANCED ROBOTIC SYSTEMS:
Along with technical progress, there were
some breakthroughs, such as the
development of the theory of intelligent
and robust control, the rapid progress of
the system-on-a-chip digital processor, the
advancement of CAE/CAD/CAM for
mechanical construction implementation,
and so on. In the mechatronics field,
motion control was the
Key technology to achieving the solutions
required for a wide variety of problems,
such as improvement of productivity,
reliability, quality in industry faced. A
control method to estimate the unknown
friction in a dynamical situation was
proposed by Iwasaki et al. (1999) and
Sakai et al. (1999), to control the position
of the mechanical object with the existence
of the friction[15,16].
A direct-drive robotic manipulator used in
semiconductor manufacturing was
Proposed and demonstrated experimentally
by Hosek [17]. Kovecses (2003) made use
of differential variational principles of
constrained dynamic systems to research
the dynamics of parallel robots and
mechanisms [18].
In most mobile robot localization schemes,
the neglect factors of slip, sinkage, and
other wheel-terrain dynamic interactions
cause the principal cause of tractive
problem and odometric accuracy loss.
Reina et al. (2006) implemented a
multimodal sensor-fusion approach and
innovated vision-based algorithm for
wheel sinkage estimation to provide
deterministic detection of slip and sinkage
especially on unpaved rough terrains[20].
BIOMECHATRONICS AND
HEALTHCARE: An emergent variant of
mechatronics is bio mechatronics that
integrates the fields of biological science
and mechatronic technology. The paper by
Mori et al. (2006) presents a "real-life”
exoskeleton for healthcare. They described
a standing style transfer system For the
disabled person, simulated and overcame
serious instability problems of
Conventional powered exoskeleton
systems[21 Liu et al. (2007) proposed a
neurosurgical robot system that they have
developed for clinical trials, and discussed
how to improve the calibration positioning
accuracy by using a revised Denavit–
Hartenberg kinematic model and virtually all engineering activities in
compensation for joint transmission errors industries such as; machine vision,
using a BP neural network[19]. automotive engineering, computer aided
Rehabilitation medicine is also the main design, sensing and control systems,
application in biomechatronics field. mobile applications, robotics.

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