On Improvement of Graduate Mechatronics Course

Abstract

Colleges and Universities across the world have developed Mechatronics courses, programs, certificates, and even degrees in order to meet the increasing demands of Mechatronics products and engineers. These Mechatronics courses, mainly focusing on undergraduate level, consist of lecture presentations, well-designed laboratory experiments, and team projects. However, how to teach Mechatronics courses at graduate level remains to be an open area for discussion. The challenge is: what subjects should be addressed, at the graduate level, to closely reflect the latest Mechatronics technologies with much broad coverage and fast growing features, while distinguished from an undergraduate-level Mechatronics course. This paper discusses the approaches that the author used when teaching a graduate level Mechatronics course (ME285 Mechatronics Systems Engineering) at San Jose State University (SJSU). The course outline, laboratory experiments, and sample course projects are presented. The goal is to provide graduate students with a challenging, timely, hands-on, minds-on, and enjoyable experience in advanced Mechatronics. A suggestion of future topics for graduate Mechatronics education is also discussed.