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Raising the bar in teaching a mechatronics

In academia, our current strategies for teaching mechatronics in mechanical design curricula provide opportunity for improvement. We have undergone a revolution in evolving mechatronics content in our curricula from limited coursework in instrumentation to one or more courses in mechatronics. However, mechatronics or dynamic systems courses tend to use a few pre-defined examples that are narrow in training experience for the students. When multiple components are incorporated into a laboratory or project, these courses tend to focus on the interfacing problem at the expense of a system view. The issues concerning optimization of the complete system to meet given requirements is not well considered. Integration of the mechanical elements, the electronic elements, and frequently the embedded software to meet a system requirement are often not an emphasis. We believe that laboratory design exercises based on actual design cases are an opportunity to provide a more comprehensive exposure to mechatronics design. These laboratory exercises can be structured to provide experience and exposure in integration of mechanical and electronics systems, system level analysis and design, and application of network communications in mechatronic systems. Several case studies, which have been used as a catalyst to various mechatronics projects at Oklahoma State University, are discussed.