Experiences with mechatronics education at the University of Twente

This paper describes the experiences with a number of variants of mechatronic programmes offered by the University of Twente since 1989. Mechatronics education took place in a two-year mechatronic designer programme, in specialisations in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering and in an international MSc programme. In the new European BSc/MSc structure the University of Twente will offer an MSc mechatronics where the course language will be English. There have been large mechatronic projects, where 4 PhD and some 50 MSc students did their thesis work as well as two-week mechatronic projects in the BSc curricula of EE and ME. The latter show that mechatronics is not only a topic of interest for students who want to specialise in this direction, but that mechatronic projects also offer a challenge for electrical and mechanical engineering students in general

A MRAS-based Learning Feed-forward Controller

Inspired by learning feed–forward control structures, this paper considers the adaptation of the parameters of a model–reference based learning feed–forward controller that realizes an inverse model of the process. The actual process response is determined by a setpoint generator. For linear systems it can be proved that the controlled system is asymptotically stable in the sense of Liapunov. Compared with more standard model reference configurations this system has a superior performance. It is fast, robust and relatively insensitive for noisy measurements. Simulations with an arbitrary second–order process and with a model of a typical fourth–ordermechatronics process demonstrate this

Mechatronic Design: A Port-Based Approach

In this paper we consider the integrated design of a mechatronic system. After considering the different design steps it is shown that a port-based approach during all phases of the design supports a true mechatronic design philosophy. Port-based design enables use of consistent models of the system throughout the design process, multiple views in different domains and reusability of plant models, controller components and software processes. The ideas are illustrated with the conceptual and detailed design of a mobile robot

Mechatronics at the University of Twente

This paper describes some of the mechatronics activities at the University of Twente. In 1989, the founding of the Mechatronics Research Center Twente started a cooperation of the departments of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Applied Mathematics and Computer Science. The mechatronics activities get especially attention in projects in the Ph.D. programme and in the `mechatronic designer' program, but Msc. students participate as well. As an illustration of the philosophy behind the work at the University of Twente and of the activities carried out so far, the paper describes two projects of the institute: the MART (Mobile Autonomous Robot Twente) project and the ALASCA (Automated Laser Aided Servo Controlled Assembly) projec

15 years of experience with mechatronics research and education

This paper describes the experiences with mechatronic research projects and several educational structures in the University of Twente since 1989. Education took place in a two-year Mechatronic Designer programme, in specialisations in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering and in an (international) MSc programme. There are two-week mechatronic projects in the BSc curricula of EE and ME. Many of the PhD and MSc projects were done in projects sponsored by the industry or by application-oriented research programs. Research topics included modelling and simulation (learning) control, embedded systems and mechatronic design