The use of DSPs as controllers in mechatronics

Mechatronics engineering can be defined as the analysis, design, and integration of mechanics with electronics through intelligent controllers. This engineering branch has gained much attention in recent years because of the fast development of integrated engineering applications in the industry. As the requirements for real-time, fast, and accurate controllers increased, the use of Digital Signal Processors (DSP) as controllers gained momentum. This is due to the fact that DSP architecture has many advantages over regular microcontrollers such as pipelining, parallelism, multiple-buses, and high acquisition rates. DSP applications in mechatronics include automotives, robotics, military, and hard disc drives. Hard disc drives present a suitable mechatronic application that uses DSP as controllers and therefore will be used as an illustrative example. This paper will discuss the following: mechatronic systems, DSP architecture, DSP applications as mechatronic controllers with emphasize on hard disc drives.