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Mechatronics combines electrical, mechanical, computer, and control engineering with systems design. Coined by Tetsura Mori, a senior engineer from Yaskawa Electric in 1969, the term is an amalgamation of the engineering disciplines it combines. During the 1970s, mechatronics supported servo technology. In the 1980s, engineers embedded microprocessors in mechanical systems. By the 1990s, mechatronics added communications technology.
As mechatronics enters the second decade of the twenty-first century, future engineers and architects from the University of British Colombia are searching for applications in public places. They envision canopies that extend to shelter sidewalks before the first raindrop falls, extra benches that appear along walkways in a crowded park, and a self-adjusting amphitheater that becomes the acoustic ideal for any type of performance. There are also potential mechatronics applications, such as self-rising railings, to help patients living in extended healthcare facilities.
Such ideas are not without precedent. In France, Paris is the home to a building that expands or retracts a shutter-like "skin" in response to sunlight. There's also a Danish architecture firm working on a street-finding system.
What are some other possible applications for mechatronics in the twenty-first century?
Source: Yaskawa
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