ABSTRACT
Most engineers work in the world of mechatronics as there are relatively few systems that are purely mechanical or electronic. There are a variety of means by which electrical systems augment mechanical systems and vise versa. For example, most microprocessors found in a computer today have some sort of heat sink and perhaps a fan attached to them to keep them within their operational temperature zone. Electrical systems are widely employed to monitor and control a wide variety of mechanical systems. With the advent of inexpensive digital processing chips, digital filtering and digital control for mechanical systems is becoming commonplace. Examples of this can be seen in every automobile and most household appliances. For example, sensor signals used in monitoring and controlling of mechanical systems require some form of signal processing. This signal processing can range from simply “cleaning-up” the signal using a low pass filter to more advanced analyses such as torque and power monitoring in a DC servo motor. This chapter presents a brief overview of digital signal processing methods suitable for mechanical systems. Since this chapter is limited in space, it does not give any derivation or details of analysis. For a more detailed discussion, see references [1,2].
