Rummaging through the pages of BBC Science Focus, my eyes arrested a recent breakthrough by scientists at a New York University. They have developed and trained an artificially intelligent system that can identify brain tumours faster and with more precision and accuracy than human doctors. All it took for the AI system was less than 150 seconds to determine brain tumour, compared to about 20 to 30 minutes if done in a pathology lab.
Elsewhere in the magazine, the pages were filled with scores of examples where robots were shown performing a number of tasks like safeguarding your home while you are away, pick up and hand over a shopping basket from trolley, extending help in the kitchen, pouring cola into a glass after opening the bottle, or even performing yoga.
Of all the trends becoming popular on today’s tech floor, one thing is all the more certain: our lifestyle is growing towards becoming more tech-savvy, our homes are rapidly turning smarter. People these days wish to wind up their routine tasks efficiently and quickly, possibly by a Robot. They rely on machines which can work for them whenever needed and in the best possible way; they need a robot to cook food for them, a self-driving car to take them shopping or work, and generate comfort around them at home using Home Automation. Thus, robotics look promising in becoming that much-needed helping hand around our homes.
For them we need a specialized multidisciplinary branch of engineering, which is satisfying human thrust of above criteria. That branch of engineering is – Mechatronics Engineering. As per the opinion of Tristan Perez, an associate professor at University of Newcastle, Mechatronics engineering is a much-needed blend of different branches of engineering.
Taking the world in its stride!
According to Peter Schmidt, a senior research engineer at Rockwell Automation’s Advanced Technology Group and teaching part-time with Craig at Marquette, “We’re all engineers and we’re doing engineering, period. Rockwell Automation has long hired electrical and control engineers to design its machine control and factory automation systems”. Many of the company’s engineers say that they have been doing systems integration design and modeling (in short, mechatronics) for 20 years.
Automation exploration was valued in the USA with $20.24 billion in 2019 and is expected to climb $42.34 billion in the next 5 years, at a CAGR of 12.15% over the predication period of five to six years. A newly carried out market research assures that enlisting robots in industries is going to grow bigger in size and is predicted to shoot up from USD 77.3 billion in 2020 to USD 110.6 billion by 2025.
Mechatronics play a crucial role in industrial automation, with many core operations in industries being managed by Robots, Self-driving vehicles, Embedded and integrated control systems. Robotics Association (USA), with support of different organizations, is all set to employ 250,000 industrial robots only in the USA within the span of a decade. As per the report published in Oxford Economics, “Trends suggest the global stock of robots will multiply even faster in the next 20 years, reaching as many as 20 million by 2030, with 14 million in China alone”.
Forging a way forward in India and state…
“Mahindra group, Mercedes, Siemens have been running Mechatronics courses for a while to train their staff members to cope up change in Manufacturing sectors in India ” said Pranjal Sharma of Business standard. In the automobile and automation sector alone, it is estimated that growth of mechatronics engineering shall be about 30% in the next 10 years.
Predictions say that the ingredients of Mechatronics engineering in industrialization will foresee to grow tremendously in the coming years. In Gujarat, ingredients are growing the demand for devices like smart TV, smart consumer products, automobiles etc. In a nutshell, application of Mechatronics engineering is steadily establishing its foothold in Gujarat too.
“There’s more technology in your car than there is in your computer. It’s got thousands of parts in it. It’s extremely sophisticated, all that robotics.”Jennifer Granholm
Covid-19 has changed the way we live, and industry will roll out its path using Mechatronics applications – Robotics in years to come. During the corona virus crisis, Robots are capable of leaping ahead and helping the heath coworkers to measure patients’ temperature, blood pressure, and oxygen levels of patients who are hooked up on a ventilator. Sales of medical robots had already increased by 50% in 2018, according to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). However, COVID-19 has exacerbated the demands of mobile robots for disinfect facilities, provide surveillance, material handling, and help with deliveries. Everything is plausible, due to use of Mechatronics engineering only.
