ABSTRACT
Electric and fluid power control systems have played important rolls on the advances of mechatronics systems including robots and NC machine tools. Future mechatronics systems are desired to operate in cooperation with human beings. In addition, it is now actively required to develop mechatronics systems having the minimum influence on operation environments through their safety and reliability. Mechatronics systems operating in electromagnetic noise environments should rather be fluid power control systems. For signal transmissions within the systems, it would be indispensable to incorporate optical operations. On the basis of the recent status, opto-fluid control systems and light-to-mechanic (or -fluid) interface devices used in the systems have been studied and developed.
