A Hands-on Course on Mechatronics, Based on Modular Production Systems

Abstract

Nowadays, it is fairly difficult to find industrial systems which are solely electrical, mechanical, or pneumatic, and not a combination of them. This brings up the importance of mechatronics courses, to prepare the students for the related jobs, where they need to deal with mechanical, electrical, and pneumatic systems and should have skills in programming industrial controllers, working with sensors, actuators, and industrial communication systems. In this paper, the details of a mechatronics course developed at the robotics and mechatronics department of the Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan is presented. The course is called ROBT402 - Robotic/mechatronic system design and is developed using a modular production system (MPS) which resembles a typical production line in a factory. Different stations of MPS are considered separately and then combined with each other. The course is delivered in the last semester of the undergraduate program and gives the students hands-on experience and provides them the required skills to work as an automation engineer. The course concludes with a project, which is done in groups, to evaluate the students.