Mechatronics
Mechatronics encompasses diverse engineering fields including mechanical engineering, electronics, control systems, and computer science. An outstanding design solution incorporates appropriate techniques from all relevant fields that complement each other as an integrated system. Because of the extraordinary number of possible variations, optimization methods are exploited to search the design space and identify the best solution candidates.
We utilize optimization in both offline design applications and online control applications. In the offline applications, we identify all possible components and their coupling or exclusive constraints, and then compute the optimal design solution in terms of cost, performance, size, and so on. We have developed a software prototype to implement the research results, and demonstrated its effectiveness through several examples, including the design of a motor drive system and a steer-by-wire system.
In the online applications, we employ the optimal control and model predictive control methods to not only stabilize the system but also reaches an optimal target, such as energy consumption and time delay. Our typical control systems include conventional and hybrid vehicles, forest machines, and production processes. The control strategies are verified by both high-fidelity simulation and physical measurement to guarantee the accurateness and real-time performance.