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

Ensure Gear Reducers Contribute to System Efficiency

More than $30 billion is spent on electricity dedicated to electric driven systems, of which, nearly 70% goes to motor systems. There are ways to reduce this cost in your motion based mechatronics system.
By Alex Howe, Application Engineer
US WITTENSTEIN Group

Motor-driven equipment in manufacturing currently accounts for more than 2.3 quads, or 2.3 quadrillion BTUs (roughly 674 billion kilowatt hours) of energy use, which equals nearly 23% of all electricity sold in the United States. Read more