Re: mechatronic
Hi,
Its not just a combination of mechanical system and electronics but actually it involves mechanical system, electronic system or circuit and a control flow. The control flow is generally a program. For embedded systems it may be written in C language or for PLC its hex codes based on Ladder diagrams. For example consider your computer's Hard Disk Drive. HDD contains a mechanical systems, i.e. actuators and motors to locate the track, a electronic circuit to govern these actuators and motors and program flashed in the circuit to guide it. The electronic is design to be interfaced with motherboard. Whenever you look for a file, the command goes to OS, OS knows where the file, i.e. which sector or track. OS sends this info to HDD. Now the program guides the electronic circuit to control the actuator and motor to go for that particular track.
There are many more example for mechatronics. Its everywhere now a days, in every system..