Future Trends in Intelligent Mechatronics Systems

SEIICHI YASKAWA

Director, New Business Development

Yaskawa Information Systems Co. Ltd.

Technical speech resume from WIN regular meeting

Mechatronics is a word and a concept which originated in Japan. During the late 1960s, our company was considering future motor applications and the names most appropriate to describe their capabilities. We combined the prefix "moto" with any number of objects resulting in such names as "motofinger" and "motohand." The word "mechatronics" resulted from that process.

Mechatronics, which is the combining of mechanical and electronic functions, is basic to most of today's high-tech products. As a manufacturer of mechatronics products I would now like to explain how mechatronics was developed from its inception. In earlier times machines were controlled by motors either contained inside of the machine or located in close proximity to the machine and there was limited flexibility in the functionality of the machine. Later, when we started combining the electronic and mechanical functions, machines became more flexible. The addition of the electronics provided a degree of accuracy that was not available from the mechanical device alone. Our company has developed a series of products which we call "super mechatronics" which enable us to offer with these devices, extremely high accuracy, speed and miniaturization.

Lately, mechatronics products have become so complicated that they are usually considered systems. As a result, we must employ product simulations during the early stages of the product design. We develop simulation systems by making models of all of the electrical and mechanical parts and then connecting them. Using such simulation also allows us to examine the effects that result when the customer's products and the company's products are connected together and must function as a system. A unique example of such simulation are the various bullet train runs of the Shinkansen. Many bullet trains run daily on the Tokaido and Sanyo lines. Our company has been developing a simulator which can test the processes of the central controlling computer, where doing so allows this computer to assume that the Shinkansen trains are actually moving.

Mechatronics has been dedicated to mass production and even to the production of various types and quantities of artifacts. In future we need to consider the combining of mechatronics and people with a special focus on information, communication, the environment, energy, medicine and welfare. The key words for these future endeavors will be flexibility, freshness, kindness and friendliness.