Mechatronics and its role in the automotive domain

There is an ever increasing demand for vehicle electrification. This demand is mainly due to environmental influences and stringent regulations on fuel consumption and emissions, more stringent safety demands, customer requirements, quality, reliability, and value. Although the field of Mechatronics, merging of mechanical systems and electronic controls, is not new, the vehicle electrification takes the mechatronics area to new levels of complexities. These new levels of complexities introduce many challenges and opportunities for automotive Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), suppliers, relevant government agencies, and academia. At Cranfield University, an Automotive Mechatronics Centre has been established to help address some of these issues in this area. This paper examines the automotive mechatronics technology along with all its opportunities and challenges for the relevant stakeholders and the role of the Automotive Mechatronics Centre at Cranfield University.