Elective Course in Introduction to Mechatronics for Mechanical Engineering Students

Abstract

A new Introduction to Mechatronics elective course was developed in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Texas-Pan American (UTPA). Mechatronics is a multidisciplinary field that integrates topics in mechanical engineering, electronics, control systems, and computer science. The Mechatronics course was developed because in mechanical engineering there seems to be a need for hands-on activities for students to get familiar and obtain better understanding of experimental implementation and control of multidisciplinary systems. The new 3-credit-hour course consists of 2 lecture hours and 3 lab hours per week. Ten lab experiments were prepared for this course during the summer and fall semester in 2005, with activities spanning from using basic electronic components to programming and integrating microcontrollers and programmable logic controllers (PLCs) with sensors and actuators. It has been determined that after taking Introduction to Mechatronics, several students have used the knowledge acquired in the course to solve problems in senior design projects, Master’s theses, and student design competitions. After offering this course for the first time during the spring semester in 2006, it was revised and improved to reorganize the sequence of subjects and to allow more time for student interaction during the lab sessions. This paper presents information about this new Mechatronics course and also includes several examples of projects developed by students using knowledge acquired in the course.