Mechatronics as an engineering science

The paper discusses the current understanding of mechatronics as an interdisciplinary subject. A conclusion is that mechatronics tends to attract contributions from many related fields, leading to a lack of focus as exemplified by many mechatronic conferences. Instead, the authors claim that engineers and researchers in mechatronics should concentrate on the opportunities and challenges arising specifically due to the interdisciplinary interactions which are characterizing mechatronics. Current practice in mechatronics engineering is characterised by a subsystem based approach by which integrated systems are built from technology homogeneous subsystems without a real demand on development of a certain technology as a result of its closer integration with other technologies. As opposed this it is claimed that mechatronics as an engineering science should focus on the interdisciplinary interactions, and based on these identify, formulate and conduct new research. The paper presents a set of new research directions, research results and grand challenges relating directly to interdisciplinary interactions between mechanical engineering, control engineering and computer science.