Tendencia en la enseñanza de la Ingeniería Mecatrónica y su campo disciplinar.

En este trabajo se explican algunos elementos básicos que deben ser pormenorizados al observar la tendencia de la enseñanza de la  Ingeniería Mecatrónica y su campo disciplinar. Lo anterior se realiza mediante un bosquejo de su evolución desde el punto de vista educativo. Recordando que la Mecatrónica como concepto surge en Japón a mediados de la década de los sesenta del siglo XX. Sin embargo fue concebida para ser enseñada como área de la ingeniería posteriormente. Después de un periodo en el que se construyó sus fundamentos en los que actualmente se cimientan sus saberes propios, como rama de la ingeniería moderna. Desde su concepción, la Mecatrónica creó nuevos paradigmas tecnológicos, con una marcada diferencia a los esquemas tradicionales establecidos en aquellos momentos. En ese contexto la enseñanza de la Mecatrónica requiere de ser concebida de forma diferente a la enseñanza convencional de la ingeniería. Por lo cual, en este trabajo de investigación mostraremos una particular ilustración de su desarrollo, además de explicar también como se ha provocado dicha evolución. Así mismo de su campo disciplinar, juntamente con un incipiente modelo pedagógico. Todos estos temas en contexto a la naturaleza interdisciplinar de la Mecatrónica

Tendencia en la enseñanza de la Ingeniería Mecatrónica y su campo disciplinar

This paper explains some basic elements that should be detailed when observing the trend of Mechatronic Engineering education and its disciplinary field. This is done by an outline of its evolution from an educational standpoint, recalling that the Mechatronics as a concept emerged in Japan in the mid-sixties of the twentieth century. However, it was designed to be taught as engineering subject later after a period in which its foundations were built to be a branch of modern engineering. Since its conception, Mechatronics created new technological paradigms, with a marked difference to the traditional schemes established at that time. In this context, Mechatronics teaching requires to be designed differently from conventional engineering teaching. Therefore, in this research we will show a special illustration of its development, and also explain this evolution origin. Likewise, we will explain its disciplinary field, together with an incipient pedagogical model -all these issues in context to the interdisciplinary nature of Mechatronics.En este trabajo se explican algunos elementos básicos que deben ser pormenorizados al observar la tendencia de la enseñanza de la Ingeniería Mecatrónica y su campo disciplinar. Lo anterior se realiza mediante un bosquejo de su evolución desde el punto de vista educativo. Recordando que la Mecatrónica como concepto surge en Japón a mediados de la década de los sesenta del siglo XX. Sin embargo fue concebida para ser enseñada como área de la ingeniería posteriormente. Después de un periodo en el que se construyó sus fundamentos en los que actualmente se cimientan sus saberes propios, como rama de la ingeniería moderna. Desde su concepción, la Mecatrónica creó nuevos paradigmas tecnológicos, con una marcada diferencia a los esquemas tradicionales establecidos en aquellos momentos. En ese contexto la enseñanza de la Mecatrónica requiere de ser concebida de forma diferente a la enseñanza convencional de la ingeniería. Por lo cual, en este trabajo de investigación mostraremos una particular ilustración de su desarrollo, además de explicar también como se ha provocado dicha evolución. Así mismo de su campo disciplinar, juntamente con un incipiente modelo pedagógico. Todos estos temas en contexto a la naturaleza interdisciplinar de la Mecatrónica

Empirical Study of Constraint-Handling Techniques in the Optimal Synthesis of Mechanisms for Rehabilitation

Currently, rehabilitation systems with closed kinematic chain mechanisms are low-cost alternatives for treatment and health care. In designing these systems, the dimensional synthesis is commonly stated as a constrained optimization problem to achieve repetitive rehabilitation movements, and metaheuristic algorithms for constrained problems are promising methods for searching solutions in the complex search space. The Constraint Handling Techniques (CHTs) in metaheuristic algorithms have different capacities to explore and exploit the search space. However, the study of the relationship in the CHT performance of the mechanism dimensional synthesis for rehabilitation systems has not been addressed, resulting in an important gap in the literature of such problems. In this paper, we present a comparative empirical study to investigate the influence of four CHTs (penalty function, feasibility rules, stochastic-ranking, and ϵ-constraint) on the performance of ten representative algorithms that have been reported in the literature for solving mechanism synthesis for rehabilitation (four-bar linkage, eight-bar linkage, and cam-linkage mechanisms). The study involves analysis of the overall performance, six performance metrics, and evaluation of the obtained mechanism. This identified that feasibility rules usually led to efficient optimization for most analyzed algorithms and presented more consistency of the obtained results in these kinds of problems

Neuronal Constraint-Handling Technique for the Optimal Synthesis of Closed-Chain Mechanisms in Lower Limb Rehabilitation

The optimal methods for the synthesis of mechanisms in rehabilitation usually require solving constrained optimization problems. Metaheuristic algorithms are frequently used to solve these problems with the inclusion of Constraint-Handling Techniques (CHTs). Nevertheless, the most used CHTs in the synthesis of mechanisms, such as penalty function and feasibility rules, generally prioritize the search for feasible regions over the minimization of the objective function, and it notably influences the exploration and exploitation of the algorithm such that it could induce in the premature convergence to the local minimum and thus the solution quality could deteriorate. In this work, a Neuronal Constraint-Handling (NCH) technique is proposed and its performance is studied in the solution of mechanism synthesis for rehabilitation. The NCH technique uses a neural network to search for the fittest solutions into the feasible and the infeasible region to pass them to the next generation of the evolutionary process of the Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm and consequently improve the obtained solution quality. Two synthesis problems with four–bar and cam–linkage mechanisms are the study cases for developing lower-limb rehabilitation routines. The NCH is compared with four state-of-the-art constraint-handling techniques (penalty function, feasibility rules, stochastic ranking, ϵ-constrained method) included into four representative metaheuristic algorithms. The irace package is used for both the algorithm settings and neuronal network training to fairly and meaningfully compare through statistics to confirm the overall performance. The statistical results confirm that, despite changes in the rehabilitation trajectories, the proposal presents the best overall performance among selected algorithms in the studied synthesis problems for rehabilitation, followed by penalty function and feasibility rule