Mechatronics Engineering

Mechatronics engineering is the synergistic integration of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, electronics and computer science into the design of a single system, rather than the separate, sequential design of a mechanical structure that electronics are added to afterward. A mechatronics engineer builds systems where sensors, actuators, embedded control and mechanical components are designed together from the start, aiming at products that are simpler, more economical and more reliable than one built by stacking each discipline on top of the last. The automobile is one of the field's clearest showcases: an anti-lock braking system or a cruise control depends on a tight control loop linking a sensor, an information-processing unit, an actuator and a mechanical change, which is exactly the kind of unified design mechatronics engineering exists to produce. The field grew out of robotics, automation and control engineering as those disciplines increasingly overlapped, and its own scope has widened well past its original mechanics-plus-electronics definition as computing and telecommunications became inseparable from most modern mechanical systems.