2. A huge field of application

Mechatronics is characterized by the immense variety of its fields of application. In fact, they are as vast as mechanics itself. Most mechanical products are destined to integrate electronics and software to a greater or lesser extent, because the integration of these technologies gives mechanics wings. Products become intelligent. They gain information acquisition and processing capabilities. They become communicators. All this gives them new functionalities that mechanics alone would be incapable of providing.

Better still, and this goes to the very heart of the mechatronics project: the integration of electronic and mechanical functions in a system has a double positive effect. It makes it possible to achieve unimaginable performance by combining state-of-the-art electronics and mechanics. Computer hard disks, for example, are technological gems. The mechanics...