The Tools, They are a Changing’

(regarding the title, just think Bob Dylan’s “The Times They are a Changin”)

Just as Computer Aided Design, CAD, has revolutionized the design process, it is growing in capability and impacting many other arenas of engineering. The first major extensions to CAD were integration of Finite Element Analysis, the ability to analyze loads on the parts being created.  And certainly, if the design software can model the complex aspects of loading, then animation of part motion can’t be a far reach.  And that’s the case today. Read more

The Future of Mechatronic Design

I think mechatronics generally begins with mechanical design.  That’s just my perspective, it may differ in your experience.   If its a power window in a car, a hard disk drive platter machine, a blender, an amusement park ride or display, a surgical robot, whatever.  They all start with mechanical design, performance goals and boundary conditions that are required for the mechanical system to be useful.

This is why there needs to be great emphasis on the design of software tools that are extensions to the 2D and 3D CAD products that are currently available.  Obviously, if you are engaged in mechanical design, you are in a unique position to the final outcome of the design project.   The mechanical design work sets the boundary conditions of what is possible. Read more

5 Design Challenges and Solutions for Machine Builders

Machine builders can virtually prototype their machine control systems with LabVIEW and the NI SoftMotion Development Module for motion profile generation as well as mechanically simulate and detect collisions with SolidWorks and COSMOSMotion.

Intense competition is putting pressure on machine builders to deliver machines with higher throughput, reduced operating cost, and increased safety.

By Nipun Mathur, National Instruments

Faster, better, cheaper, safer is the name of the game for machine builders. For this reason, today’s machine builders have switched from rigid, single-purpose machines – relying purely on mechanical gears and cams – to flexible multipurpose machines by adopting modern control systems and servomotors.

Although these improvements have made machines more adaptable, they also have introduced a significant amount of complexity to the machines and subsequently to the machine design process. Along with designing the mechanicals, machine builders now incorporate control logic, human machine interfaces (HMIs), networking, and machine condition monitoring systems into their designs. The added complexity has created inefficiencies in the machine design process that lengthen design time and increase design cost.
Solving this multidisciplinary engineering problem requires improvements in three key areas – development techniques, design tools, and embedded control technology. The term mechatronics is gaining popularity as a way to describe this evolution. It represents an industry-wide effort to improve the design process by integrating the best available development practices and technologies to streamline machine design, prototyping, and deployment. A mechatronics-based approach can lower the risks associated with machine design and meet the following five key challenges that machine designers face today. Read more

Mechatronics

Why should you care? Because whatever the term “mechatronics” might mean to you, it affects so many aspects of our daily life.

We’ve all seen commercials with a production floor full of welding robots making automobiles. Certainly automotive manufacturing would not be possible without numerically controlled machine tools, robots and much more. And the automotive manufacturers continue to advance the field of automated manufacturing resulting in higher quality products at lower costs. Read more