Emerging Trends In Mechatronics

Mechatronics is a multidisciplinary branch of engineering combining mechanical, electrical and electronics, control and automation, and computer engineering fields. The main research task of mechatronics is design, control, and optimization of advanced devices, products, and hybrid systems utilizing the concepts found in all these fields. The purpose of this special issue is to help better understand how mechatronics will impact on the practice and research of developing advanced techniques to model, control, and optimize complex systems. The special issue presents recent advances in mechatronics and related technologies. The selected topics give an overview of the state of the art and present new research results and prospects for the future development of the interdisciplinary field of mechatronic systems.

Most modern systems involve various engineering disciplines. Mechatronic systems are designed to be dependable and efficient; however, mechatronics engineering faces multiple challenges at the design and exploitation stages. It is essential for engineers to be aware of these challenges and remain up to date with the emerging research in the mechatronics engineering field. Trends, Paradigms, and Advances in Mechatronics Engineering presents the latest advances and applications of mechatronics. It highlights the recent challenges in the field and facilitates understanding of the subject. Covering topics such as the construction industry, design optimization, and low-cost fabrication, this premier reference source is a crucial resource for engineers, computer scientists, construction managers, students and educators of higher education, librarians, researchers, and academicians.

The term “mechatronics” was coined in 1969, merging “mecha” from mechanism and “tronics” from electronics, to reflect the original idea at the basis of this discipline, that is, the integration of electrical and mechanical systems into a single device. The spread of this term, and of mechatronics itself, has been growing in the years, including new aspects and disciplines, like control engineering, computer engineering and communication/information engineering. Nowadays mechatronics has a well-defined and fundamental role, in strict relation with robotics. Drawing a sharp border between mechatronics and robotics is impossible, as they share many technologies and objectives. Advanced robots could be defined as mechatronic devices equipped with a “smart brain”, but there are also up-to-date mechatronic devices, used in tight interaction with humans, that are governed by smart architectures (for example, for safety purposes). Aim of this book is to offer a wide overview of new research trends and challenges for both mechatronics and robotics, through the contribution of researchers from different institutions, providing their view on specific subjects they consider as “hot topics” in both fields, with attention to new fields of application, new challenges to the research communities and new technologies available. The reader of this book will enjoy the various contributions, as they have been prepared with actual applications in mind, along a journey from advanced actuators and sensors to human-robot interaction, through robot control, navigation, planning and programming issues. The book presents several state-of-the-art solutions, like multiple-stage actuation to cope with conflicting specification of large motion-spans, ultra-high accuracy, model-based control for high-tech mechatronic systems, modern approaches of software systems engineering to robotics, aand humanoids for human assistance. The reader can also find new techniques in approaching the design of mechatronic systems in some possible industrial and service robotics scenarios, with a particular attention for the interaction between humans and mechanisms.

The term "mechatronics" describes the research and development of devices that combine mechanical structures with electronic controls. Over the last two decades it has come to mean sophisticated intelligent products -- employing optics, energetics, computer science, automatic control and other disciplines -- and now encompasses new software technologies, network robotics and network production. With the growth of miniaturization techniques, there has been a growth of application of microelectronics to mechatronic devices such as sensors, actuators, engines, machines and robots, with possible future applications in the fields of chemistry and biology, as well as in engineering. This volume contains contributions that reflect the latest developments in this fascinating field such as fingertip manipulation, obstacle detection, micromanipulation of biological objects, ultra-high precision microrobotics, and an insect-like robot.

Mechatronics, as the integrating framework of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer technology, control engineering and automation forms a crucial part in the design, manufacture and maintenance of a wide range of engineering products and processes. The mechatronics itself changes rapidly in last decade, from original mixture of subfields into original approach in engineering as a technical discipline. The book you are holding is aimed to help the reader to orient in this evolving field of science and technology. "Mechatronics 2013: Recent Technological and Scientific Advances" is the fourth volume following the previous editions in 2007, 2009 and 2011, providing the comprehensive and accessible coverage of advances in mechatronics presented on the 10th International Conference Mechatronics 2013, hosted this year at the Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic. The contributions, that passed the thorough review process, give an insight into current trends in research and development among Mechatronics 2013 contributing countries, with paper topics covering design and modeling of mechatronic systems, control and automation, signal processing, robotics and others, keeping in mind the innovation benefits of mechatronics design approach, leading to the development, production and daily use of machines and devices possessing a certain degree of computer based intelligence.

This book presents the latest research on mechatronic systems engineering. By bringing together the most important papers from the 2018 Mechatronics Forum Conference ‘Reinventing Mechatronics,’ it outlines key trends in research and applications that will define mechatronics for the next 50 years. Mechatronics was established as an engineering discipline over 50 years ago, as the integration of electronics and information technology with mechanical design. Given major technological advances and the growth of systems-level concepts such as Cyber-Physical Systems and the Internet of Things, along with Cloud Technologies and Big Data, it’s now high time to reconsider the role of mechatronics, particularly within engineering design. Past and ongoing technological changes are impacting how systems are designed and configured in ways that could never have been envisaged when the field of mechatronics was first introduced.

This book presents part of the iM3F 2020 proceedings from the Mechatronics track. It highlights key challenges and recent trends in mechatronics engineering and technology that are non-trivial in the age of Industry 4.0. It discusses traditional as well as modern solutions that are employed in the multitude spectra of mechatronics-based applications. The readers are expected to gain an insightful view on the current trends, issues, mitigating factors as well as solutions from this book.