MECHATRONICS CLARIFICATIONS

To the Editor: Your article “Who Owns Mechatronics?” in the June issue drew our special attention, because I have been working as a member of the International Steering Committee of the International Conference on Mechatronics Technology since 1996. The first conference of ICMT was held that year in Santa Clara, Calif., sponsored by the National Science Foundation of the United States.

It was still a very funny coincidence that in that year, the first issue of IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics was published. An editorial in the Transactions reads: “The word ‘Mechatronics’ is a new word for the blending of mechanics and electronics.”

This sentence seems to be the trigger of wrong and false information on Mechatronics, spread over the world since then.

“Mechatronics” is definitely not the combination of “mechanics” and “electronics,” but of “mechanism” and “electronics.” This is the very watershed point to impart a wrong meaning to “Mechatronics” that is related to interdisciplinary subjects. Mechanism is a unit of machinery, not an academic discipline. The first name combined “motor,” “machine,” and “control”: “mochintrol.”

The article’s assertion that “the word ‘Mechatronics,’ which is now freely used by anyone…” is not precise. Mechatronics is a registered trademark that you can use free of charge. However, you cannot distort the meaning or philosophy of Mechatronics that had been previously described by Tetsuro Mori, in many copyrighted publications, e.g. JSPE Bulletin and Yaskawa research reports.

When the trademark was granted to Yaskawa Electric Corp., Mr. Mori was one of the executive officers and a member of the corporate board of YEC. Therefore, “engineer” in your article is not correct. Furthermore, his undergraduate major was neither mechanical nor electrical, but welding engineering.

The question of “Who should lead the project?” or discussions of this kind that tend to encourage the turf battling do not make sense but mislead readers.

If you are interested in genuine and orthodox information about Mechatronics, please visit the site www.icmt2008.com/conf_papers.html where I am going to present a paper coauthored with Tetsuro Mori and Shin Yokota.

Haruo Kozono
Kitakyushu City, Japan

Editor’s note: The author, an ASME Fellow, is president and CEO of General Systems Corp.

…AND NOSTALGIA

To the Editor: The cover of the June issue of Mechanical Engineering concerning “Mechanical or Electrical” triggered me into another fit of nostalgia. During my undergraduate work in mechanical engineering during the early ’60s, my degree plan varied from the catalog somewhat to accommodate the periods when certain classes were being offered.

In those days, engineering students carried conspicuous and mysterious sticks called slide rules. When I graduated, I discovered that, without intent, I had earned a minor in electrical engineering. This accident served me well, as I was able to qualify for very rewarding design positions at Ford Motor Co. and ITT that other mechanical engineers did not have the background for.

One thing I discovered, however, is that when an electrical component goes awry, whether in the lab or in the field, it’s always a mechanical problem. The electricity never breaks. How do those double E’s do it

Leonard Lacaze Jr., P.E.
Ramona, Calif.

NO OWNERS

To the Editor: I read your article “Who Owns Mechatronics?” with particular interest, since we are convening our first group of Mechatronics engineering students this spring. When we launched the program five years ago, we decided that no one discipline should own Mechatronics. Instead, our interdisciplinary program is jointly offered by the departments of mechanical, electrical, and systems design engineering.

Judging by the academic and industrial successes of our first graduating class, our team approach seems to work.

John McPhee
Waterloo, Ontario

MAKING CONNECTIONS

To the Editor: The June 2008 issue discusses “Mechanical or Electrical? ME or double E or someone else… .” An innovative approach to high school teaching of science and engineering, which goes beyond the traditional division between ME and EE, has been successfully developed over the last eight years in cooperation with a group of researchers from the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, and is presently used in 20 Israeli high schools, of which 11 are part of the ORT Israel network. This approach, entitled “Engineering Sciences,” is conducted by way of analogies between ME and EE subjects.

The analogies are fundamental concepts, mathematically based generalizations of the usual ME and EE principles. The student learns the higher-level generalization and then the implementations as particular cases in ME or EE subjects. This leads to deeper understanding than starting with the traditional science subjects and then showing the generalization.

Some analogies that have common principles, but different implementations in ME and EE are: minimum energy, linearity, amplification, feedback and control, derivation, integration, waves, resonance, exponential growth or decay, conservation laws, and symmetry. 

Understanding and using the analogies enables in-depth comprehension of phenomena, generalization of solutions, and transfer of knowledge from one domain to another.

Consider, for example, the concept of linear correlation. There is an obvious analogy between the phenomena of elasticity and electric resistance, and also of limiting force or limiting current. Traditionally, the concept of linear correlation in mechanics and electricity are taught separately. Most students do not manage to conceive the multisubject generalization on their own. The “Engineering Sciences” approach emphasizes explicit learning through analogies to help students understand the concept of linear correlation between two variables, x and y, and to understand that in the real world this linearity does not exist from - to +, but within a finite range.

Kenneth Preiss
Eran Sher
Meir Fershtman
Tel Aviv, Israel

Editor’s note: Kenneth Preiss, an Honorary Member of ASME, is an emeritus professor and Eran Sher is a professor at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Meir Fershtman is head of the Goralnik Institute of ORT Israel.

A VOTE FOR BIODIESEL

To the Editor: Many alternative fuels to gasoline have been proposed, and much money and effort have and will be expended to develop them. In the end, a number will be determined as the “best” choices for whatever reason or criteria. We need a technical, chemical, environmental, economic analysis of the front-runners to determine which would be best to pursue. We need a total life analysis of each fuel from the first plowing of the field to the final exhausting of the spent fuel.

For most of the non-technical people in the country (including the execs of the American auto companies), “diesel” is a dirty word. It would be my first choice.

The diesel process can be twice as efficient as the gasoline engines.

Diesel fuel can be renewable through biodiesel. This would be an enormous benefit to the farmers and agricultural states as a home-grown fuel. Every gallon of biodiesel would replace a gallon of oil. That money would stay in America, providing jobs and futures for Americans.

Individuals could grow some of their own biodiesel. Thousands of communities could have facilities to process the raw biodiesel and sell it back to the community.  

There would be places for alternative energy sources, but they would probably be used in special locations.

Robert Risher, P.E.
Owego, N.Y.