Page 12 - Mechatronic Components Roadmap to Design

Chapter 1

Mechatronics: A Brief History

Ten years ago in 2008, an article was published in the journal Control Engineer-
ing Practice titled as “Mechatronic systems—Innovative products with embed-
ded control” by Rolf Isermann from Darmstadt University of Technology,
Germany. This article describes the mechatronics as “Many technical processes
and products in the area of mechanical and electrical engineering are showing
an increasing integration of mechanics with digital electronics and information
processing. This integration is between the components (hardware) and the
information-driven functions (software), resulting in integrated systems called
mechatronic systems.”
After 10 years when the cited documents were examined, there were 173 of
them. When we look at the cited documents, we can see titles such as
“Automotive control: the state of the art and perspective,” “The Internet of
Things—The future or the end of mechatronics,” “Multisensor fusion and inte-
gration: A review on approaches and its applications in mechatronics,” and
“Beyond advanced mechatronics: new design challenges of Social-Cyber-
Physical systems.”
As we can see from this simple example mechatronics is everywhere, from
automotive control to internet of things to cyber-physical systems. So, one
should wonder what happened that the concepts of mechatronics was able to
grow this fast in the last decade. Because when we consider mechanical engi-
neering, this field has been around for thousands of years and gained momentum
with the Industrial Revolution. Same growth happened with electrical engineer-
ing which started to develop in the 19th century and still continues to advance.
Mechatronics is not a new concept, it is not even a field; it is a way of think-
ing and natural way of growth of mechanical engineering. As mechanical engi-
neers we have realized that so many things inside the machines can be achieved
by using electronics much more easily rather than making the whole system all
mechanical. Moreover, the importance of both control and measurements
greatly advanced the machines and all these necessities helped the field of
mechatronics to grow.
When we look at the last decade we can understand how mechatronics sys-
tems are developing with an increasing speed. There are six reasons for this
exponential growth. They are as follows:
1. Internet access: With the ease of internet access it is now much easier to
access the information. This information what the user is looking for can be a

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