Mechatronics theme for imparting an interdisciplinary engineering education to undergraduate students is selected due to several reasons.

Mechatronics is an exciting, high-tech, and inherently interdisciplinary technology representing a growth industry with high demand for qualified graduates. The hands-on mechatronics and smart systems experiments can fuel students' imagination and provide an opportunity to reinforce and enhance their disciplinary skills.

1. Measurement and control systems consisting of sensors, actuators, and physical plant provide an avenue for physics-based system modeling.
2. Mechatronics prototype project development activities provide students invaluable systems integration experience wherein they learn


• to identify objectives from given problem specification;


• to determine variables to be sensed and manipulated;


• selection of and interface requirements for sensors, actuators, analog/digital electronics, and microcontroller hardware; and


• the design, model, simulate, analyze, refine, prototype, and validate cycle.
3. Smart systems prototype project development activities enable students to apply optimization, signal processing, decision and control, fault diagnostic, etc., to produce smart products.
4. Each skill learned in the sequence is valuable in it self, independent of others, and provides a foundation for applying a systems approach to problem solving