Machine intelligence and intelligent machines

Since the word mechatronics was created in 1960s, the connection in physical level of mechanical and electronic subsystems and power driving had been gradually realized. By the end of 1980s, it was emphasized that the control of mechatronics systems was based on sensor information, scilicet the concept of information-driven. At the turn of the century, more and more researches and applications concentrated on direct-drive. Thus it was fairly perfect that mechanical and electronic subsystems combined organically. With the development of artificial intelligence and computer science, information and symbol processing could solve some intelligence problems, so that machine intelligence appeared. However, only when the motion characteristics (e.g. kinematical and kinetic models, etc) of machines were fully considered, the intelligent machines could be built by machine intelligence. This paper intended to introduce some new developments of mechatroincs in the world and our research results.