Platform for Mechatronics Education Using: (1) Mechatronics Technology Demonstrator, and (2) Web Based Virtual Experimentation

Increasing demands on the productivity of complex systems, such as machine tools and their steadily growing technological importance will require the application of new methods in the product development process. This paper shows that the analysis of the simulation results from the simulation based mechatronic model of a complex system followed by a procedure that allows a better understanding of the dynamic behavior and interactions of the components. This paper will highlight the results of interaction between National Institute of Technology, (NITK) Surathkal, India and University of District of Columbia (UDC) in the area of Mechatronics and virtual testing. Mechatronics is a design philosophy, which is an integrating approach to engineering design. Through a mechanism of simulating interdisciplinary ideas and techniques, mechatronics provides ideal conditions to raise the synergy, thereby providing a catalytic effect for the new solutions to technically complex situations. Many real-world systems can be modeled by the mass-spring-damper system and hence considering one such system, namely Mechatronics Technology Demonstrator (MTD) is taken as the first example. MTD is a portable low cost, technology demonstrator that can be used for teaching mechatronics system design. The paper highlights design optimization of several mechatronic products using the procedures derived by the use of mass spring damper based mechatronic system. The second example is on web based virtual experimentation, where the experiment is conducted by remote triggering of Torsion Testing Machine. Remote triggered (RT) experimentation is a method of remotely controlling the laboratory equipment by an internet based system from a webpage. RT lab is an excellent way for the students to get access to expensive state of the art labs and equipment. The present work deals with the systematic approach of realizing a remote triggered experimentation on a horizontal torsional testing machine which can be triggered from a tablet PC or a laptop through an internet connection directed to the server computer system. RT lab algorithms are built in the server computer and the information and controls will be displayed on an html webpage where the experiment can be conducted. In this experiment the machine is remotely started through a command in the webpage which will be directed to the main server computer system from a wireless handheld internet enabled device such as laptops or tablet PCs and render the suitable graph of the experiment in the device. The experiment is completely in the control of the user. The person can either on/off the main equipment with the help of the device within the given slot of time and the data from the graph can be retrieved for further analysis. The first example uses a software platform of VisSim and the second example uses a software platform LabView. Although located in two different locations and countries, this paper examines the common mechatronics philosophy and the design approach used in modeling, simulation, optimization and virtual experimentation in building robust mechatronics product and procedures.