A New Perspective on Engineering Education in Mechatronics Age OKYAY KAYNAK UNESCO Chair on Mechatronics, Bogazici University, Bebek, 80815 Istanbul, Turkey Abstract - The technological developments of the last two decades have made it necessarry to reconsider the classical engineering curriculum. This paper discusses how to educate and train the engineers of the next century in the interdisciplinary field of mechatronics. After a brief review of the existing mechatronics programs in different countries, the efforts going on in Bo¤aziçi University in this respect are discussed and an outline of the curriculum is given. The goals of the UNESCO Chair on mechatronics that has recently been established at this university are also explained. 1. Introduction The word mechatronics was first coined by a senior engineer of a Japanese company; Yaskawa, in 1969, as a combination of "mecha" of mechanisms and "tronics" of electronics and the company was granted the trademark rights on the word in 1971 [1-2]. The word soon received broad acceptance in industry and, in order to allow its free use, Yaskawa elected to abandon its rights on the word in 1982 [3]. The word has taken a wider meaning since then and is now widely being used as a technical jargon to describe a philosophy in engineering technology, more than the technology itself. For this wider concept of mechatronics, a number of definitions have been proposed in the literature, differing in the particular characteristics that the definition is intended to emphasize. The most commonly used one emphasizes synergy: Mechatronics is the synergetic integration of mechanical engineering with electronics and intelligent computer control in the design and manufacture of products and processes. A graphical representation of a mechatronic product is given in Fig. 1 [4-6]. It symbolizes how the three main disciplines are fused, the depth of fusion being dictated by the outside factors; which can be grouped as market demands, administration and manufacturing practices and education and training. The recent tendency is to include optics in this figure as a fourth circle to emphasize the importance of this discipline in mechatronics. 2. Technical Breadth v. Depth profile essential in Mechatronics Age As is explained in the introductory section, a number of different technologies are deeply integrated in mechatronics. It therefore requires that the technical profile of personnel that have to research into, design, manufacture, operate and maintain mechatronics products has some specific characteristics. If we have a look at the past, the technical personnel of the early 1900's was a generalist, having a broad spectrum but not depth. An engineer usually meant somebody that was a master of all trades, able to tackle any problem. With increasing level of technology in industrial processes, the depth of knowledge had to increase too and this happened at the cost of breadth, resulting in distinctive specialization areas as indicated in the same figure. However, the amount of overlap between these areas is only marginal, with the outcome that the specialists of one field can hardly communicate with those of another field. Such specialists can be called as non-communicative specialists. The technological advances of the second half of the century has necessitated even a greater depth and the result we now have is the sub-specialization areas such as communication, control, power, etc. Nevertheless, there is a considerable amount of overlap between these sub- disciplines, enabling communication between different specialists. However, the overlap between the main disciplines is very limited, as a consequence of which a mechanical engineer can hardly communicate with an electrical engineer. This is a serious detriment in the diffusion of mechatronics technology. The technical personnel of the mechatronics age should possess a different technical profile. A special way of explaining this is as follows. Technical personnel who have been educated with a classical curriculum have an "I" type of profile, i.e. they are specialists of only one area; electrical and electronics (Elect) or mechanical (Mech) engineering or computers and programming (Comp). However, a person that will design or manufacture mechatronic products has to have a "T" type of profile, where the main pole of the T is either “Mech” or “Elect” and the beam