Advance in Mechatronics

Muzammil Nakadey, Shaikh Moinuddin, Merchant Bilal 1

Kalsekar Polytechnic
Address
Mechanical Department, 2nd year (inst.code-1608)
1
[email protected]

Abstract— Mechatronics does not have a technology, with computer science methods. Figure
definite definition; However, Mechatronics could 1 depicts the three areas of mechatronics and their
roughly be defined as an interdisciplinary overlap.
engineering with a synergistic combination of Typical examples of mechatronic systems are
mechanical engineering. The portmanteau automotive applications, e.g. advanced braking
"Mechatronics" was first coined by Mr. Tetsuro systems, fly/steer-by wire or active suspension, but
Mori, a senior engineer of the Japanese company also DVD-players or washing machines.
Yaskawa, in 1969.The major advantages of Mechatronic systems are characterized by a
Mechatronics Systems are that they are simpler, combination of basic mechanical devices with a
economical, reliable and versatile systems when processing unit monitoring and controlling it via a
integrated than being operated as individual number of actuators and sensors. The introduction
systems. Due to these major advantages, its field of mechatronics is a tight integration of mechanical,
of application is very vast like Automotives, electrical and information-driven units.
Defence, Medical, Smart consumer products,
Manufacturing, etc. Cars, CD players, washing
machines, railways are all examples of
mechatronic systems. The main characteristic
(and driving force) of recent advances is the
progressively tighter coupling of mechanic and
electronic components with software.
In this paper we survey current developments Fig. 1 Areas of Mechatronics
and discuss future trends in mechatronics, the
future of mechatronics will specifically see a II. CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF TECHNOLOGICAL PROCESSORS
AND PRODUCTS
move towards a high degree
of adaptability and self-organization. In the era prior to the invention of the
Keywords— Mechatronics, Actuators, electromagnetic induction dynamo (1830-40) by
Automation, Miniaturization, Modularization, Michael Faraday, all “machines” (technological
etc. processes and products) were mechanical (M) in
nature, i.e., composed essentially of mechanical
I. INTRODUCTION units. Since mechanical units exhibit large inertia,
Mechatronics is “the application of machines of this era tended to be large,
microelectronics in mechanical engineering” (the cumbersome, slow, “uni-functional” and “non-user
original definition suggested by MITI of Japan). friendly (difficult to control and maintain)”.
Previously, mechatronics just meant However, it sufficed for the innovators of such
complementing mechanical parts with some machines to be well versed in mechanical sciences
electrical units, a typical representant being a photo and arts.
camera. Today, mechatronics is an area combining By the late 19th century, since electrical (E1)
a large number of advanced techniques from energy can be transmitted and transformed much
engineering, in particular sensor and actuator more easily than mechanical energy, the energy
receiving and manipulating units within machines One of the most prominent problems in current
(technological processes and products) started to be industrial development and even research
replaced by functionally comparable electric units. As approaches is however the lack of integration
a result, machines became more compact, controllable between the different disciplines, namely
and user-friendly. mechanical and electrical engineering and computer
A technological transformation occurred with the science or software engineering more specifically.
advent of analog electronic (E2) valves in the Usually, the mechanical engineer starts with
earlier half of the last century. This transformation designing the shape and mechanical parts, then the
accelerated after the 1950s owing to the electrical engineer plans the wiring and finally the
development of transistors, digital electronics and software engineer has to write the code. This
power electronics (E3). Wherever possible, approach leads to a lot of design errors and costly
electrical functional units were replaced by such rework when it is finally noticed that some parts do
electronic units so as to attain several orders not fit together or the simple layout of processors
superior performance in terms of size, and memory make certain software solutions
controllability and user-friendliness. The synergistic impossible.
combination of E1, E2, and E3 technologies may be Analysis & Tools: A rather large percentage of
collectively referred to as E technologies mechatronic systems are deployed in safety critical
(electrical/electronic technologies). areas (e.g. the automotive or rail domain). This
The second half of the last century saw dramatic makes analysis of mechatronic systems (or first of
changes in technological processes and products all, their models) one of the main areas of work for
owing to the rapid extension of earlier successes in software engineers employed in the design of such
electronic technologies towards the development of systems. Since its invention in the late 80’s model
a bewildering array of digital computational units checking has become a standard technique for
(computers): general purpose integrated chips (IC), verification, in particular for hardware systems.
application specific ICs (ASIC), microprocessors The main advantage of model checking which
(µp), etc. These functional units are now so small in makes it interesting for mechatronic systems is its
size (miniaturized) that they can be embedded (almost) full automation, providing tool support for
within the functional units. analysis. Notwithstanding recent advances and
III. STATE OF ART
success stories, the main challenge is still the so-
called state explosion problem: model checking
Modeling & Tools: In a certain sense, modeling
techniques (most often) rely on a search of the
and even model driven development, i.e. the
whole state space, and this can grow to arbitrarily
generation of executable code from a model, has
large dimensions. For Example: SAT solvers are
long been existing in the mechatronic world to
combined with decision procedures (giving so-
improve software quality based on model analysis.
called SMT-solvers), model checking with specific
Code Generation: Based on such a specification,
AI search methods, bounded model checking is
model based development ideally requires the
parallelized or model checking combined with
generation of code which meets all real time
static analysis methods.
constraints. This requires the code generator to
Mechatronic systems present a further challenge
know about all platform specific constraints like
for verification as they belong to the area of hybrid
speed and number of processors or available
systems, characterized by a combination of discrete
memory. Only a very few research oriented
and continuous parts. The software constitutes the
approaches exist to support a uniform modeling of
discrete part, while the continuous dynamics
the behavior of all system components including the
corresponds to the physical system with its sensors
specification of real time constraints and a
and actuators. Verification of hybrid systems today
corresponding code generation.
is still in its infancy. System models in this class are
Processes: The above description focused on
written as timed automata, and a number of tools
modeling the software part of mechatronic systems.
support verification of timed automata with respect
to reachability or even temporal logic specified  Precise hybrid modeling: No hybrid
properties. Automation can still only partially be modeling techniques exist today which are
achieved; the algorithms employed in the model able to describe the diverse parts of a
checking are not guaranteed to terminate anymore. mechatronic system in a uniform and precise
In order to make the actual system fit into the way. Current formalisms try to simply
required subclass, approximations of the real combine some of the existing modeling
system are used. language from the three areas but most often
without giving a meaning to the mixed use of

 Integrated hybrid analysis: The three

diagrams.

disciplines involved in the construction of

mechatronic systems all have analysis
techniques on their own. Instead of applying
these in isolation, an integrated analysis
framework is needed in which a particular
Fig. 2 Composition of Mechatronics system type of analysis in one area supports & relies
IV. FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS AND CHALLENGES on analysis in another area.
We believe that future mechatronic systems will
consist of several autonomously acting agents
capable of monitoring their own physical
environment as well exchanging information with
other agents. Constructing the software of advanced
systems requires a number of significant changes of
current software engineering techniques. In Fig. 3 Example of Miniaturization

particular, the following issues have to be addressed Verification Systems with discrete and
to build the next generation systems properly. continuous parts are intrinsically difficult to verify.
A. Current software design processes are Model checking of hybrid systems and the transfer
tailored towards a particular domain rather than of known verification techniques to the domain of
spanning over all involved domains. hybrid systems remains a challenge.
B. Modeling formalisms allow for a description Volatility Evolution according to new data from
of static systems but not for their volatility. Model the environment will be one main characteristic of
transformations are meant for transforming models future advanced mechatronic systems. The behavior
towards a particular use on a platform but not for of such systems will thus not be completely fixed
describing the change in that model. during design, but is allowed to adapt to
C. Analysis techniques mainly rely on the environmental changes. The permitted degree of
knowledge about a global state space and cannot change might partially be laid down by model
cope with properties only emerging due to the transformations being part of the model itself.
volatility of systems. Verification thus has to show that the system
D. Secure exchange of information is usually remains safe under all possible influences from the
based on a central unit and cannot manage environment.
decentralized highly distributed systems of agents
V. FUTURE TRENDS IN MECHATRONICS ENGINEERING
dynamically building as well as resolving clusters.
The integration of mechanical, electrical and By definition, automation is the replacement of
software parts poses challenges which so far have human labour. And technology is (just) a bag of
only partly been addressed. For the analysis of tools that come in the form of hardware and/or
today’s mechatronic systems we can identify the software. A tool is something that assists in
following shortcomings: performing existing tasks better or enables new
tasks to be performed. In other words, it somehow the variety of possible sensors is almost unlimited.
replaces human labour, i.e., automates the task. For instance cutting forces in CNC machining
Thus progress in technology (through mechatronics, (Figure 4) and its consequences (e.g., tool fracture)
or otherwise) is synonymous to automation. Human can today be monitored and controlled using
activity can be broadly divided into two categories: commercially available devices capable of sensing
individual or collective (social). Individual machining noise, machine vibrations, acoustic
activities may be purely mental or combined with emission, drive motor current, etc. Future
physical activity. Irrespective of whether it is mechatronic engineers will have to possess deeper
reflexive or reflective, any human physical act understanding of natural sciences so as to cope with
requires effort at five levels: the growing variety of sensors.
i. Setting the goal (a purely mental activity).
ii. Sensing the environment through the five
sensory organs: eyes, ears, skin, tongue, and nose.
iii. Communicating the sensory signals to the
central neural processor called the brain.
iv. Fusing the signals to recognize patterns of
interest and output the command signals to human Fig. 4 CNC Machine
limbs. B. Machine learning: Intelligence means
v. Performing the physical task using limbs adapting to the environment and improving
(actuators). performance over time. Within the domain of
A remarkable human ability is to learn from the mechatronic engineering, “there has been
results obtained from past acts so as to perform considerable interest in learning through the use of
better when executing similar tasks in the future. ANN and fuzzy logic for applications in control and
This learning ability provides human beings with robotics, autonomous guided vehicles (AGV), etc.,
the ability to act as autonomous units. A further that require mainly reflective intelligence when
ability lies in communicating with other human performed by human operators and tasks, such as
beings so as to undertake collective tasks.
machine diagnostics, requiring combinations of
The above description of human abilities provides a
reflexive intelligence and low level reflective
basis for understanding trends in mechatronics.
intelligence.” This interest will continue well into
A. Sensing and sensor fusion (task ii) will be the future.
the next capability to be acquired by mechatronic
systems. Already, many mechatronic units possess
rudimentary sensing abilities. For instance, modern
air conditioning units are able to sense air
temperature and humidity through separate sensors
and fuse the signals through fuzzy logic reasoning.
Likewise, sensors in the form of transducers have Fig. 5 Example of sensing and sensor fusion: Robots
long been used to enable feedback control in C. Autonomization refers to the development
machines. However, there is still a long way to go. of the ability to survive and perform robustly while
Sensors produce copious amounts of data that need the external environment changes. With progress in
to be digested to discover patterns of interest before sensor and learning technologies, tomorrow’s
control can be effected through the “actuators”. mechatronic devices can be expected to become
Advances in high-speed microcomputers and signal progressively more autonomous. They will be able
processing algorithms have now opened the door to reset their local goals autonomously under
for the exploitation of sensors exploiting a wide changing external environments so as to meet the
range of physical, chemical and, even, biological broad system-level goals set by human beings.
phenomena. While actuators are limited in variety,
D. Modularization will be a consequence of join “societies” of devices with a common purpose
autonomization. Mechatronic sub-units will come or interest.
in modular form, i.e., with all the abilities required
VI. CONCLUSIONS
for local goal setting, control, and learning
encapsulated within the sub-unit. Thus, in time, In this article, we have sketched current, future
every mechatronic sub-unit will be self-contained trends and advancement in the development of
and intelligent. mechatronic systems. In particular, we have
E. Miniaturization refers to the trend towards discussed the challenges involved in the
mechatronic units of significantly smaller size construction of future advanced systems.
(Figure 3). Progress in precision engineering, newer Summarizing, these can be roughly divided into
materials (composites, diamond coatings, etc.), and two categories: the challenges arising from the
nano-technologies will contribute to this collaboration of several different disciplines (which
development. is already an issue today), and those due to the
F. Links to the Internet: The Internet will aspect of self-coordination which seems to be a
become ubiquitous within the mechatronic world. main characteristic distinguishing current from
Every autonomous mechatronic unit will be future mechatronic systems. These are challenges to
connected via broadband and satellite networks to all involved disciplines, but in particular to software
the rest of the world. Each mechatronic device will engineering. Key to a success in mastering them is
be able to access the information and knowledge the joint effort and collaboration of disciplines,
base available on the Internet so as to optimize its within computer science and engineering.
own performance. At the same time, it will be able ACKNOWLEDGMENT
to communicate its operational status to remote Healthy thanks to Prof. Aamir Siwani and Prof. Rashid for
monitors. their proper guidance and co-operation.
G. Societies of devices: The metaphor of
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