Mechatronics, Codes and Logic gates

Mechatronics is a concept of Japanese origin (1980’s) and can be defined as the

application of electronics and computer technology to control the motions of

mechanical systems.

Definition of Mechatronics

It is a multidisciplinary approach to product and manufacturing system design

(Figure). It involves application of electrical, mechanical, control and computer

engineering to develop products, processes and systems with greater

flexibility, ease in redesign and ability of reprogramming. It concurrently

includes all these disciplines.

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Mechatronics: a multi-disciplinary approach Mechatronics can also be termed as

replacement of mechanics with electronics or enhance mechanics with electronics.

For example, in modern automobiles, mechanical fuel injection systems are

now replaced with electronic fuel injection systems. This replacement made the

automobiles more efficient and less pollutant. With the help of

microelectronics and sensor technology, mechatronics systems are providing

high levels of precision and reliability. It is now possible to move (in x – y plane)

the work table of a modern production machine tool in a step of 0.0001mm. By

employment of reprogrammable microcontrollers/microcomputers, it is now easy

to add new functions and capabilities to a product or a system. Today’s domestic

washing machines are “intelligent” and four-wheel passenger automobiles are

equipped with safety installations such as air-bags, parking(proximity) sensors,

antitheft electronic keys etc.

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Convectional Design Mechatronics Design
Bulky componentized systems Compact integrated systems
Complex mechanism: complex Simple mechanism replacement of
mechanical mechanisms many complex mechanical components
and for systems with electronic
computer and for software systems
Cable problem Bus or wireless communication
Simple control integration by information processing
(software)
Stiff construction Elastic construction with damping by
electronic feedback
Feedback control, linear (analog) Electronic feedback
control Programmable feedback (nonlinear)
digital control
Precision through narrow tolerance Precision through measurement and
Non measurable quantities changes feedback control

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arbitrarily Control of non-measurable estimated
Simple monitoring quantities
Fixed abilities Supervision over fault diagnosis
learning ability
Centralized processing and control Hybrid control: adaptive and or
architecture processing and control
decentralized and distributed
Constant speed drives Variable speed drives
Mechanical systems Mechanical computer, electronic
software, and /or network interface
and/or control of neurological system

Applications

Today, mechatronic systems are commonly found in homes, offices, schools,

shops, and of course, in industrial applications. Common mechatronic systems

include:

Table 2: applications with product categorization

Product categorzations Product categorization examples

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Onboard control systems Aerospace, martine, weapons and
space system
Biomedical instrumentation MRI, CT scan, and Airport security
systems
Office equipment Computers, printers, copiers, fax
machnies
Industrial machniary and equipment Turbines, printing presses, weapon
systems
Large scale transportation equipment Large aircrafts, locomotives, mass
ransit systems

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 Modeling, Analysis
Integrated Design System Development
Testing and Refinement Tasks

Sensors and Transducers

Actuators

Controllers

Structural Electronic
Mechatronic System
Components (Analog/Digital)

Energy Softwares
Sources

Hydraulic and
Pneumatic Signal Processing
Device

Thermal Input/Output
Devices Hardware

Mechanical Electrical and Computer

Concept of Mechatronics System

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Evolution Level of Mechatronics

1. Primary Level Mechatronics: This level incorporates I/O devices such as

sensors and actuators that integrates electrical signals with mechanical

action at the basic control levels. Examples: Electrically controlled fluid

valves and relays

2. Secondary Level Mechatronics: This level integrates microelectronics

into electrically controlled devices. Examples: Cassette players

3. Third Level Mechatronics: This level incorporates advanced feedback

functions into control strategy thereby enhancing the quality in terms

of sophistication called smart system.

• The control strategy includes microelectronics, microprocessor and

other ‘ Application Specific Integrated Circuits’ (ASIC) Example: Control

of Electrical motor used to activate industrial robots, hard disk, CD drives

and automatic washing machines.

4. Fourth Level Mechatronics: This level incorporates intelligent control in

mechatronics system. It introduces intelligence and fault detection and

isolation (FDI) capability systems. Advantages and Disadvantages of

Mechatronics system:

Following are the advantages and disadvantages of mechatronics:

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 Advantages:

1. The products produced are cost effective and of very good quality.

2. The performance characteristics of mechatronics products are such which

are otherwise very difficult to achieve without the synergistic combination

3. High degree of flexibility.

4. A mechatronics product can be better than just sum of its parts

5. Greater extent of machine utilization

6. Due to the integration of sensors and control systems in a complex system,

capital expenses are reduced

7. Owing to the incorporation of intelligent, self correcting sensory and

feedback systems, the mechatronic approach results in:

• Greater productivity;

• Higher quantity and producing reliability.

Disadvantages:

1. High initial cost of the system

2. Imperative to have knowledge of different engineering fields foe design and

Implementation

3. Specific problems for various systems will have to be addressed separately

and property.

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 4. It is expensive to incorporate mechatronics approach to an existing/old

system

Components of Mechatronics system:

The term mechatronics system (sometimes referred to as smart device)

encompasses a myriad of devices and systems. Increasingly, microcontrollers

are embedded in the electromechanically devices, creating much more flexibility

and control possibilities in system design.

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Components of a typical Mechatronics system

• Actuators: produce motion or cause some action. Solenoids, voice calls, DC

motors, Stepper motor, servomotor, hydraulic, pneumatic.

• Sensors: detect the state of the system parameters, inputs and outputs.

Switches, potentiometer, photoelectric, digital encoder, strain gauge,

thermocouple, accelerometer etc.

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Input/output Signal conditioning and interfacing: provide connection between

the control system circuits and the input/output devices. Discrete circuits,

amplifiers, filters, A/D, D/A, power transistor etc.

• Digital devices: controls the system. Logic circuits, micro controller,

SBC, PLC etc

• Graphic Display: provide visual feed back to users. LEDs, Digital

Displays, LCD,

CRT

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Importance of Mechatronics in automation:

Operations involved in design and manufacturing of a product

Today’s customers are demanding more variety and higher levels of flexibility in

the products. Due to these demands and competition in the market,

manufacturers are thriving to launch new/modified products to survive. It is

reducing the product life as well as lead-time to manufacture a product. It is

therefore essential to automate the manufacturing and assembly operations of a

product. There are various activities involved in the product manufacturing

process. These are shown in figure 1.1.3. These activities can be classified into two

groups viz. design and manufacturing activities.

Mechatronics concurrently employs the disciplines of mechanical, electrical,

control and computer engineering at the stage of design itself. Mechanical

electrical engineering as various electric prime movers viz. AC/DC, servo motors

and other systems is used. Control engineering helps in the development of

various electronics-based control systems to enhance or replace the mechanics

of the mechanical systems. Computers are widely used to write various softwares’

to control the control systems; product design and development activities;

materials and manufacturing resource planning, record keeping, market survey,

and other sales related activities.

Using computer aided design (CAD) / computer aided analysis (CAE) tools, three-

dimensional models of products can easily be developed. These models can then

be analyzed and can be simulated to study their performances using

numerical tools. These numerical tools are being continuously updated or

enriched with the real-life performances of the similar kind of products. These

exercises provide an approximate idea about performance of the product/system to

the design team at the early stage of the product development. Based on the

simulation studies, the designs can be modified to achieve better performances.

During the conventional design manufacturing process, the design assessment is

generally carried out after the production of first lot of the products. This consumes

a lot of time, which leads to longer (in months/years) product development lead

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-time. Use of CAD–CAE tools saves significant time in comparison with that

required in the conventional sequential design process.

CAD-CAE generated final designs are then sent to the production and

process planning section. Mechatronics based systems such as computer aided

manufacturing (CAM): automatic process planning, automatic part programming,

manufacturing resource planning, etc. uses the design data provided by the design

team. Based these inputs, various activities will then be planned to achieve the

manufacturing targets in terms of quality and quantity with in a stipulated time

frame.

Mechatronics based automated systems such as automatic inspection and quality

assurance, automatic packaging, record making, and automatic dispatch help to

expedite the entire manufacturing operation. These systems certainly ensure a

supply better quality, well packed and reliable products in the market. Automation

in the machine tools has reduced the human intervention in the machining

operation and improved the process efficiency and product quality. Therefore, it

is important to study the principles of mechatronics and to learn how to

apply them in the automation of a manufacturing system.

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Digital Codes

In digital circuits, each number of piece of information is defined by an equivalent

combination of binary digits. A complete group of these combinations which

represent numbers letters or symbols is called a digital code.

The group of Os and is in the binary number can be thought of as a code

representing the decimal numbers. When a decimal number is represented by its

equivalent binary number, it is called a straight binary coding.

In modern digital equipment, codes are used to represent and process numerical

information.

Types of codes. The various types of codes are enumerated and briefly discussed

below:

1. BCD code

It is also known as “natural BCD” and is very convenient for representing

decimal digits in digital circuits.

• It consists of four bits from 0000 to 1001 representing the decimal

numbers from 0 to 9.1010 to 1111 are don’t care conditions since they do

not have any meaning in BCD.

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2. Excess-3 code

• The code can be derived from BCD by adding 3 to each coded number.

It is useful when it is desired to obtained the 9’s complement of a decimal

digit represented by this code. The 9’s complement is obtained simply by

complementing each bit.

• This code can be conveniently used for performing subtracting operations

in digital computers.

3. Gray code

• In this code only one bit changes between any two successive numbers

• It is mainly used in the location of angular positions of a rotating shaft.

4. Octal code

• The octal system is a base system.

• It uses 3 bits to represent one octal digit.

5. Hexadecimal code

• The hexadecimal system is a base 16 system.

• It uses four bits to represent one hexadecimal digit

• The hexadecimal digits are represented as 0 to 9 continued by

alphabetical characters from A to F.

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Logic Gates:

General aspects:

A digital circuit with one or more input signals but only output signal is called a

logic gate.

A logic gate is an electronic circuit which makes logic decision.

• Logic gates are the basic building blocks from which most of the digital

systems are built up. They implement the hardware logic function based on

the logical algebra developed by George Boolean which is called Boolean

algebra in this honour.

• A unique characteristic of Boolean algebra is that variables used in it can

assume only one of the two values i.e either 0 or 1. Hence, very variable is

either a 0 or a 1 (fig .106-limits on TTLICs)

• Each gate gas distinct graphic symbol and its operation can be describea by

means of Boolean algebraic function

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 • The table which indicates output of gate for all possible combinations of

input is known as a truth table.

• These gates are available today in the form of various IC families. The

popular families are:

i. Transistor –transistor logic (TTL)

ii. Emitter- coupled logic (ECL)

iii. Metal- oxide- semiconductor (MOS)

iv. Complementary metal – oxide – semiconductor (CMOS)

Application of logic gates:

The following are the fields of application of logic gates:

1. Calculators and computers

2. Digital measuring techniques

3. Digital processing of communications:

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 4. Musical instruments

5. Games and domestic appliances, etc.

6. The logic gates are also employed for decision making in automatic control

of machines and various industrial processes and for building more complex

devices such as binary counters etc.

Positive and negative logic:

The number symbols. 0 and 1 represent, in computing systems, two possible states

of a circuit or device. It does not make any difference if these two state are referred

to as “On” and ‘OFF’ closed and ‘Open’ ‘High’ and ‘Low’ ‘Plus’ and ‘minus’ or

‘True’ and ‘Falsa’ depending upon the situations. The main point is they must be

symbolized by two opposite conditions. In positive logic a ‘1’ represents: and ON

‘circuit’; a close switch; a high voltage, a plus sign’ True statement’ consequently,

a 0 represent: an off circuit’ an open switch’, a law voltage’, a plus sign’, true

statement’ consequently, a 0 represent: an Off circuit’: an Open in negative logic,

the just opposite conditions prevail.

Example: A digital system has two voltage levels of 0V and 5V. If we say that

symbol 1 stand for 5V and symbol 0 for 0V, then we have positive logic system. If

on the other hand, we decide that a 1 should represent 0V and 0 should represent

5V, the we will get negative logic system.

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Main point is that in ‘positive logic’ the more positive of the two voltage levels

represents the 1 while in ‘negative logic’ the more negative voltage represents the

1.

Types of Logic Gates

In the complex circuits, the following six different digital electronics gates are used

as basic elements:

1. NOT Gate

2. NAND Gate

3. AND Gate

4. OR Gate

5. NOR Gate

6. XOR Gate

A truth table has 2n rows. It gives in each of its row m outputs for a given

combination of n inputs.

1. NOT Gate:

• Not operation means that the output is the complement of input. If input is

logic ‘1’, the output is logic ‘0’ and if input is logic ‘0’, the output is logic

‘1’

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 • The symbol of NOT Gate, it is generally represented by a triangle followed

by a bubble (or a bubble followed by a triangle)

• NOT gate is used when an output is desired to be complement of the input

• If all inputs of NAND gates are joined it shall act as NOT gate

• NOT gate is also called inverting logic circuits. It is also called a

‘complementing circuit’

2. NAND GATE

• A NAND gate can said to be basic building block of the all digital TTL logic

gates and other digital circuits

• It is represented by the symbol shown in the figure below.

• Its unique property is that output is high ‘1’ if any of the input is at low ‘0’

logic level.

Let us consider two inputs with the state A and B at the NAND gate. The answer

(output) X = A.B . Bar denotes a NOT log operation on A.B. The meaning of A.B,

called AND operation, given in 3 below.

3. AND GATE

• A NAND gate followed by a NOT gate gives us AND gate

• It is represented by the symbol shown in the figure below. Its symbol differs

from NAND only by omission of a bubble (circle)

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• Its unique property is that its output is ‘0’ unless all the inputs to it are at the

logic 1’s

• A two inputs, AND gate X = A.B. Dot between the two states indicates

‘AND’ logic operation using these

4. OR GATE

• An ‘OR’ operation means that the output is ‘0’ only if all the inputs are ‘0s’

• It is represented by a symbol in fig 2.110

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