ABSTRACT
If mechatronics design is more than just the combination of electronic, software, and mechanical design, the additional feature must lie in the ability of the mechatronic designer to optimize a design solution across these disparate fields. This requires a sufficient understanding of each of these fields to determine which portions of an engineering problem are best solved in each of these domains given the current state of technology. In turn, this requires the ability to model the problem and potential solutions using techniques that are domain independent or at least permit easy comparison of solutions and tools from different domains.
