In this episode, we're discussing what do mechatronics engineers do?
And we're starting.
Right now.
Hey.
Hey I'm Jake Voorhees and welcome back to the 1% engineer show where we empower
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If you want to be a mechatronics engineer,
what type of industry do you want to work in? Robotics signals and controls,
rocketry nanotechnology,
let us know in the comments below so we can make more videos about that.
Also want to give a big shout out and thank you to Hamza Waheed.
Who's the director of operations here at 1% engineer, and he wrote this script.
So let's jump right into the video guys,
mechatronic engineers designed and maintained machinery with electronic and
computer control systems, such as aircraft robots, motor vehicles,
cameras, power generators, and mining and chemical plant equipment.
Mechatronics engineering is hugely broad with lots of opportunities to work in
different sectors and different roles and different capacities all across the
board go over the seven sub fields within mechatronics engineering,
but truly all of these sub fields are within the realm of systems optimization,
particularly for the optimization of automation of industrial or
mechanical systems. Mechatronics is the combination of the words,
mechanical and electronics.
A mechatronics engineer is someone who applies the principles of mechanics,
electronics, and computing to generate a simpler, safer,
or more economical and reliable system. Okay, now that you have an intro,
let's talk about the history of mechatronics engineering.
The word mechatronics was first used in Japan in the 1960s,
and the field has considerably grown outside of robotics alone.
Early on robot arms were uncoordinated and had no sensory feedback,
but as advances were made in programming, sensory technology and controls,
the robotic movements became more coordinated along the way.
Advances in mechatronics began to be used in vending machines,
auto-focus cameras and even door openers.
With the advent of information technology in the 1980s,
microprocessors were introduced into mechanical systems,
improving performance significantly by the 1990s advances in computational
intelligence were applied to mechatronics in ways that revolutionized the field.
The concept of applying the mechatronics approach to design development and
fabrication has been popular for several decades in Japan and Europe,
but is only slowly gaining ground in the United States.
That's why so many of you ask about this field is because it's still relatively
new. I get more requests for this video than any others.
Right now machines were traditionally designed by mechanical engineers and only
afterward we're control and programming solutions provided by computer and
software engineers as familiarity with mechatronics has grown in this country.
Designers have come to see this more approach as inefficient and are adopting
more integrated design methods. All right, with that simple history,
let's go over the tasks and duties.
What do mechatronics engineers actually do in their career?
When you begin any engineering career, you start off learning the fundamentals,
whatever industry you are in, and you may be doing any of these tasks or duties,
a mechatronics engineer may design develop,
maintain and manage high technology engineering systems for the automation of
individual tasks.
You may apply mechatronic or automated solutions to the transfer of material
components or finished goods or design and assist with the manufacturing of
consumer products, such as [inaudible] cameras and video recorders.
You may carry out studies into the feasibility cost,
implications and performance benefits of new mechatronic equipment.
You may apply electronic and mechanical processes and computers to tasks where
the use of human rights, the labor may be dangerous. For example,
underwater exploration, mining, or forestry. All right,
it's very simple tasks and duties assembly.
There let's go over those seven sub fields within mechatronics engineering
robotics. I get so many questions about robotics.
Robotics is an interdisciplinary research area at the interface of computer
science and engineering robotics involves design construction operation,
and the use of robots.
The goal of robotics is to design intelligent machines that can help and assist
humans in their day-to-day lives and keep everyone safe.
An example of a robot is an industrial robot found in a car manufacturing plant,
which is welding parts together. Digital control systems.
Now control is a branch of control theory that uses digital computers to act as
system controllers, depending on the requirements,
a digital control system can take the form of a microcontroller to an a S
I C to a standard desktop computer,
which incorporates several of the individual control modules.
This there in Southfield is automation.
Automation is the technology by which a process or procedure performed with
minimal human assistance automation or automatic control is the use of various
control systems for operating equipment,
such as machinery processes and factories, boilers, and heat treating ovens,
switching on telephone networks, steering and stabilizing of ships, aircraft,
and other applications.
Along with vehicles that include minimal or reduced human intervention.
And example of automation is the self-driving in car machine or computer vision
machine vision is the technology and methods use to provide imaging based
inspection and analysis for such applications as automatic inspection process
troll and robot guidance.
Usually within industry machine vision refers to many technologies,
software and hardware products, integrated systems, actions, methods,
and expertise.
Instrumentation instrumentation is a collective term for measuring instruments
that are used for indicating measuring and recording. Physical quantities.
Instrumentation can refer to devices as simple as direct reading thermometers or
as complex as multisensory components of industrial control systems. Today,
introverts can be found in laboratories, refineries, factories, and vehicles,
as well as an everyday household use smoke detectors,
thermostats devices like this biomechatronics biomechatronic isn't applied
interdisciplinary science that aims to integrate biology, mechanics,
and electronics.
It also encompasses the field of robotics and neuroscience biomechatronic
devices encompass a wide range of applications from the development of
prosthetic limbs to engineering solutions concerning respiration vision and the
cardiovascular system. Biomechatronics also includes removable gadgets,
such as exoskeletons. Finally,
you have avionics avionics or the electronics systems used on aircraft,
artificial satellites and spacecraft avionic systems include
communications,
navigations and display and management of multiple systems and the hundreds of
systems that are fitted to aircraft to perform individual functions.
These can be as simple as a Searchlight for a police helicopter or as
complicated as a tactical system for an airborne early warning platform.
Really cool creator on YouTube called everyday.
Astronaut has some videos about this and you can see his work. Yeah,
you can see his content to get a better understanding of ABM. Oh right.
With those sub fields covered.
Let's talk about the work environment of a mechatronics engineer,
mechatronics engineers working such as robotics, aerospace, medical,
and assistive technology, mining,
or defense material handling human machine interaction, manufacturing, unmanned,
aerial, and ground vehicles. And within education,
they may work within a laboratory conducting research.
They could work for a high tech company or large global enterprise at a
processing plant within a corporate engineering office.
It can also be involved with research in emerging fields like bioengineering,
nanotechnology and robotics. Mechatronics engineers may be required to travel,
to present at a conference or view a new design or innovative technology,
even collaborate with another team, participate in training things like, okay,
now let's talk about the PE the professional engineering exam.
If mechatronic engineers should achieve that,
there's a big divide between how much programming you have to do within your
engineering career and how much design you have to do within your career.
That suggests where you should be on the spectrum of,
to not take the PE or take the PE. And so if you do design work,
if you're going to be on the mechanical side of mechatronics,
then you most likely should sit for the F fundamentals of engineering exam after
graduation from university,
so that you can be a PE one day and you can sit for the professional engineering
exam. After four years of experience designing company,
if you are far to the other side of the spectrum or the electronic side,
you may be on the heavier programming signals controls the coding applications
of mechatronic systems, and therefore you don't necessarily design.
And you may never, I actually need that PE behind your name.
So depending on what you want for your career,
depending on where your expertise may be,
make the right decision that's for you. Even if you are on the programming side.
And you're more of an alert electrical engineer working within a mechatronics
engineer ecosystem or heavily skewed towards the programming side of
mechatronics engineering.
And you still want to have a managerial career and have the best salary you can
get and be in leadership one day, or be some sort of technical division head.
Then you should get your PE no matter what, because it helps you stand out.
It really does boost your salary a little bit. It shows your ambition,
and there's almost no bad things that can come from getting your PE.
So I always say, go ahead and do it guys. All right.
I get so many requests about this video. I hope it helped you.
If it did comment below on what type of industry you want to work on,
what type of dream job you want to achieve within mechatronics engineering.
So many people tell me, I just want to do the things that Tony start can do.
What type of engineering is for me? I think it's mechatronics is what they ask.
And it's basically true. So I had a lot of fun doing this video.
What should we make next? Thanks again for watching the 1% engineer show guys,
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