Mechatronic Components

Roadmap to Design

Emin Faruk Kececi

• Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780128141274
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Mechanical Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Mechatronic Components: Roadmap to Design explains the practical application of mechatronics, including sections on adaptive structures, robotics and other areas where mechanics and electronics converge. Professional engineers in a variety of areas will find this textbook to be extremely helpful with its in-depth use of flow diagrams and schemes that help readers understand the logic behind the design of such systems. Using approximately 130 different components with diagrams and flowcharts that help engineers from different fields understand the general properties and selection criteria of a component, this book presents a comprehensive resource on mechatronic components.

• Presents different concepts from the cross-disciplinary field of mechatronics, including discussions from mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and computer science
• Explains the decision-making process for components with visually appealing flow diagrams
• Provides detailed guidance on the selection of materials and components for building mechatronic systems
• Includes specific cases studies that illustrate applied concepts

Chapter 1

Mechatronics: A Brief History

Ten years ago in 2008, an article was published in the journal Control Engineering Practice titled as “Mechatronic systems—Innovative products with embedded control” by Rolf Isermann from Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany. This article describes the mechatronics as “Many technical processes and products in the area of mechanical and electrical engineering are showing an increasing integration of mechanics with digital electronics and information processing. This integration is between the components (hardware) and the information-driven functions (software), resulting in integrated systems called mechatronic systems.”

After 10 years when the cited documents were examined, there were 173 of them. When we look at the cited documents, we can see titles such as “Automotive control: the state of the art and perspective,” “The Internet of Things—The future or the end of mechatronics,” “Multisensor fusion and integration: A review on approaches and its applications in mechatronics,” and “Beyond advanced mechatronics: new design challenges of Social-Cyber-Physical systems.”

As we can see from this simple example mechatronics is everywhere, from automotive control to internet of things to cyber-physical systems. So, one should wonder what happened that the concepts of mechatronics was able to grow this fast in the last decade. Because when we consider mechanical engineering, this field has been around for thousands of years and gained momentum with the Industrial Revolution. Same growth happened with electrical engineering which started to develop in the 19th century and still continues to advance.

Mechatronics is not a new concept, it is not even a field; it is a way of thinking and natural way of growth of mechanical engineering. As mechanical engineers we have realized that so many things inside the machines can be achieved by using electronics much more easily rather than making the whole system all mechanical. Moreover, the importance of both control and measurements greatly advanced the machines and all these necessities helped the field of mechatronics to grow.

When we look at the last decade we can understand how mechatronics systems are developing with an increasing speed. There are six reasons for this exponential growth. They are as follows:

1. Internet access: With the ease of internet access it is now much easier to access the information. This information what the user is looking for can be a motor supplier, data sheet of a sensor, or some theoretical knowledge. Before the ease of internet access main source of knowledge were books. Considering that it takes at least 3–4 years for a book to start as an idea and finds itself a space on a bookshelf, the information received from a book is actually old knowledge in today's world. It is much easier to update information on websites and users can learn much faster.

2. Open Source Communities: Use of knowledge and sharing of the knowledge led people to form open source communities where people put their project information and even codes on the internet. When another person picks up the project and develops the codes the result can be impressive. RepRap Community worked together and filament-based three-dimensional (3D) printing technology has been developed. With the same intentions, Arduino Project was made public and all kinds of Arduino compatible electronic parts are developed.

3. Ease of Manufacturing: Manufacturing of the parts is getting easier. The computer-aided drawing programs were very expensive and very difficult to learn. Nowadays, you can download freeware drawing programs and even some of these programs are working online making it easier for the user by not needing a high computing power computer. Since people can draw the part they want easily, there are also online manufacturing companies where one can order a part to be manufactured by computer numerical control (CNC) laser cutting or CNC milling.

Especially the growth of 3D printing machine market and a desktop 3D printer getting cheaper makes prototyping of the machines much easier. Moreover, the availability of online 3D printing services makes even non-engineers able to design and build their ideas.

4. Maker Spaces: The necessity of hands-on experience in the engineering education is even more important as the competitions between the companies are increasing and for any start-up to be successful, they should be able to show their prototype. In order to let the engineering students to have hands-on experience, understand the theoretical part of the courses they learn, and learn to work in a team, different universities have Maker Spaces where the student can build their projects. This building and do it yourself culture are growing and closing the gaps between the engineering fields, especially when a machine is being built mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering students work collaboratively and understand the importance of mechatronics. In their professional life, they have also very big tendency to work together with the engineers from other disciplines.

5. Off-the-shelf Electronics: Embedded systems are very important part of mechatronic systems, where the software is put to run the system. The microcontrollers have been around, a user can buy the microcontroller but has to develop the board himself/herself. This process was very time consuming and since the board was not done professionally it was susceptible to mistakes. Off-the-shelf electronics overcame this problem and provided the users with ready-to-go programming board. It was revolutionary to have a board which needed no soldering, could be powered by a USB port, programmed by a USB port (not needing to transfer the microcontroller to the programmer and back to the board), and provide terminal to see the inputs and outputs in real time. Arduino was the first commercially successful project and others have followed. The programming cards now come with different computing power, size, and input/output ports for different purposes. Sensor boards, different types of motor drivers, and all kinds of boards followed this trend.

It is naturally more expensive to use off-the-shelf electronics, but for educational and prototyping purposes use of these electronics cuts the time drastically.

6. Cost Drop of Electronics and Manufacturing: Around 15 years ago, inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensor from Honeywell was priced around 1000$. Nowadays, price of an IMU sensor from Sparkfun already on the board using I2C protocol ranges from 10 to 35$. It is also very easy to use online 3D printing companies or university services to build parts by using 3D printing technology where a gram of printed material cost 0.03$, and for an hour of printing the cost is 5$. The drop in the cost of electronics and 3D manufacturing is allowing more people to work on mechatronic projects.

When we consider a mechatronic system, it consists of mechanical, electrical, and software subsystems. This division in fact also shows itself in the literature. If the author of the book has a mechanical or electrical background, the book is also written from that perspective. This is the unique purpose of this book because people from different background do not have enough information to understand where to start to solve their problems in mechatronics.

Consider a mechanical engineer who needs to design a transmission system. There are many choices, such as gears, belts, chains, and shafts. In mechanical engineering education these concepts are taught in detail. However, if an engineer with an electrical engineering background is working on a transmission system, it is very time consuming even to realize the difference between different choices.

This book does not intend to teach the user different components of the mechatronics systems, rather it is a guidebook for the users to understand the advantages and disadvantages of different components.

This book consists of 16 other chapters. Chapter 2 describes the use of this book. Chapters 3–15 show with block diagrams different components and their usages and their kinds. These components are grouped as follows:

Chapter 3. Calculations of Mechanical Properties

Chapter 4. Mechanical Failure Modes

Chapter 5. Materials Properties

Chapter 6. Manufacturing Processes

Chapter 7. Machine Elements

Chapter 8. Design and Analysis Programs

Chapter 9. Assembly Processes

Chapter 10. Electronic Components

Chapter 11. Actuators

Chapter 12. Sensors

Chapter 13. Signal Processing

Chapter 14. Controls Theory and Applications

Chapter 15. Design and Simulation Softwares.

Finally, in Chapter 16 case studies are presented with examples to explain the reader the use of the book.

The idea of this book started around 2002, when the author read the book “The Practice of Machine Design” by Yotaro Hatamura, ISBN 978-0198565604. In this book some of the mechanical engineering concepts were explained by using tables and charts, making it very easy to understand the difference between the different concepts.

Chapter 2

Use of This Book: Mechatronic Components: Roadmap to Design

Design concept requires creativity and knowledge. The designer is presented with a vaguely defined problem. He will need to imagine a solution and use the engineering knowledge to design and build the prototype system.

Almost all the time the problem can be explained in one or two sentences, mostly by nonengineers. Let us say that the problem is to have a device to harvest energy from the water flowing in a creek. The user lives in a remote area and would like to have energy source for his home. From the user...