What is mechatronic design?

May 16, 2008

What is mechatronic design and how do you recognize good mechatronic design when you see it? What are the principles that should be followed?

These are good questions that were prompted by a response to my post on the great Italian-designed machines that I observed at Interpack. Long-time colleague Rob Aleksa from P&G sent me a personal email with the following thought provoking comments and questions:

I read your article on Italian machine builders and thought it was pretty good. You mention Mechatronic Principles. Do you have a list of what those principles are? I'd also like your take on how the industry defines Mechatronics. I've seen the term used to describe a machine with a servo and also as a well designed servo-based machine. Well designed meaning the mechanical system was modeled for interferences and general control standards used. As you have a pulse on the industry, how would you define it and how do you think the industry defines it?

My reply is as follows:
I don't have a list of principles for mechatronics, but I think that the fundamental principle is that mechatronics is about holistic design, not about 4 separate designs. I define mechatronics as the synergistic application of electrical, mechanical, controls and computer engineering to create useful products. When design is passed back and forth over the walls separating these various disciplines, the design is not as good as when the whole machine is conceived at once using these disciplines in a fully integrated way.

I know that some of my readers, who are closer to the design of machines than I, have listed design principles for mechatronic machines within their own companies. These include things like "all encoders with be absolute" or "all couplings will be keyed". It would be interesting if folks would write in to the blog with their lists of principles for good mechatronic design.

As to the state of the industry, I don't think that there is broad consensus as of yet about what mechatronics is. There are too many entrenched silos that mechatronics must cut across. And while principles are probably universal, as a practical matter, the skills and knowledge of applying mechatronics need to be bounded within particular industries. We make mechatronic earth moving machines, mechatronic DVD drives and mechatronic packaging machines. These require very different technologies to be applied within a mechatronic framework.

I'll be writing a blog on how machine builders are changing their focus from what their machines do to who their machines serve. Perhaps we need to do the same in education and the organization of professions. We could change the focus from the technology we study (electrical, mechanical, etc.) to the industry that we serve (earth moving, packaging, etc.).

Mechatronics is tough to describe. It is a paradigm shift, and they are always difficult to get your mind around. But an observer can see that some people do it better than others. Perhaps it is like describing beauty: it's hard to describe, but you know it when you see it.

Send us your thoughts and mechatronic principles.

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Comments

Reading your comments, I was struck by the similarity to 'fit for purpose', the basic concept of quality. Couplings should be keyed if the provision of a key is less trouble than a coupling slipping at some time in the future. If rezeroing after power up is too time consuming, then you need absolute encoders and so on. This line of thought leads you back to the fundamental question, 'what is the mechanism for?' Who are the customers and stakeholders for the functionality provided by the mechanism and what are their requirements?

It was a US Army engineer in the 1800's who defined an engineer as someone who could do for $1 what any fool could do for $5. Since he was probably talking mainly about earthworks, brute force would probably succeed but never elegantly.

An elegant Mechatronic design applies the fit for purpose concept across the range of engineering disciplines - mechanical, electrical and software, using the best approach for each aspect of the machine rather than favouring a single discipline. Sounds a lot like systems engineering doesn't it. Unfortunately, a wide range of skills are needed by at least one individual or else very good colaboration between different disciplines. My own experience with packing machines over many years is that design faults often seem to occur at the boundaries between disciplines.

A final detail, looking at the US website for Yaskawa, it says that they thought up and registered 'Mechatronics' in 1967 and released it to general public use in 1987. Since they make servo drives, it can be considered as originally meaning 'mechanical and electronic' but I think the term has moved on to systems with mechanical, electrical/electronic and software elements.

Posted by: Leon Hooper on May 21, 2008

I am an electronic engineer in Medellin - Colombia. I am involved in the development of control systems for packaging machines.

For me mechatronics design is to make a mechanical movement simple, fast, flexible and precise.
Simple: minimal mechanical parts involved (shafts- servomotor-gears or belts (good mechanical design))
Fast: Very good mechanical and electrical response (system modelation, programming and mechanical designing)
Flexible: Could be changed basically, by use of a recipe (programming: Human Machine Interfase and Control Software)
Precise: The motion could be repeated with minimal errors during operations (mechanical and control design).

Like we see is the use of many knowledge areas ( mechanical, electrical-electronic and software) with only one purpose: A simple, fast, flexible and precise machine.

Posted by: David Perez on July 29, 2008

I agree that its hard to define. And I challenge the notion that there are mechatronic principles, although there is a great need for systematic methods. In part this is because the "mechatronic" term is over used and its application is very situational. THe key thing to understand is that in each project there are differing goals and differing priorities of what is important. Obviously, people who build machinery are concerned with throughput and cost. But the boundary conditions and number of variables are extremely complex and difficult to navigate.

I am currently on a kick about better tradeoff analysis as a key part of better mechatronic design, and I have some techniques that can be directly applied to the design process.

I would like to correspond with you longer term toward driving the discipline forward. I am currently blogging and writing for Design World magazine. You can review some of my recent rants at Projectmechatronics.com

Sincerely
Steve Meyer

Posted by: Steve Meyer on September 1, 2008

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What is mechatronic design?

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