9414585 Asada In the design of high speed mechatronic systems, such as disk drives, chip placement machines and three-dimensional coordinate measurement machines, an integrated approach to the optimization of mechanical structures, actuators and sensors together with controllers is increasingly important. There are significant interplays and trade-offs between mechanical design and control design, which must be considered carefully to optimize the total system performance. This research will establish a novel method for the integrated design of high speed mechatronic systems. To overcome the difficulty of obtaining exact analytic models, this project incorporates prototyping and experimentation into the design process. Based on a model verified through experiments, the design is modified, and its performance improvement is examined through prototyping and experimentation. This project forms a closed-loop recursive process comprising design modification, prototyping, and experimentation. In each recursion, a prototype control system is tested experimentally, the system model is corrected and refined based on the data, design trade-offs are made to determine an optimal design change, and the prototype is physically modified in accordance with the determined design change.
